Cestoda
by hobonisuru
Summary: An assortment of various glimpses into possibility. Sad, silly, horror, or happy. This is something of a mixed bag.
1. Warlord Woman

"I swear to god, Lisa," I snarled, quietly. "I am going to beat you stupid with a frying pan for this."

Lisa—Tattletale—just grinned the same stupid foxy grin as always, albeit maybe, maaaaybe, with a tinge of sheepishness to it. The blood from her nose was smeared down the side of her cheek, and stretched oddly with her expression.

"Relax, Skitter." She said, with that same stupid smugness, and a severe lack of any sort of nasal quality to it despite the punch she'd taken. "They were totally going to try to kill us anyway."

'They' were a gang we, in theory, had been trying to reach out to in Cambridge. They called themselves the Delta Staid, despite not really being a delta of anything or all that staid. I seriously wish people actually thought about their names more deeply. They were only five parahumans, and about forty regular humans strong, but that was part of the point.

"Just," I said slowly, starting my rant, while continuing to harass the goons and direct my friends with my insects. "Because they were going to try anyway, doesn't mean you should have opened that big mouth of yours and started spilling their secrets. I mean, seriously? That last one was over the line."

"Yeah," Tattletale cringed a little. "Maybe. It was funny though!"

I paused.

"Yeah, okay, it was kind of funny." I smiled behind my mask, stifling a chuckle. "But it was still over the line."

"Got him!" I heard, and saw through my bugs, Regent cause one of the Delta's parahumans to electrocute his comrade. It was actually a pretty nice move, just the right twitch, at the exact right moment, to change the current away from Brian and into Periwinkle. With their main defense down, this was going to thankfully get wrapped up quite soon.

He was probably going to be gloating about that for weeks. Ugh. I'll have to get Aisha to distract him. Then again, he was probably only doing it to get a rise out of me. Maybe I should try to put him off balance. Hmm…

"That should be good enough," I heard Parian murmur. I let my spiders scurry away at her announcement, and watched a tapestry come to life as all the silk I'd sown around the room suddenly danced into a form. A form that conveniently wrapped up the last of the goons, and two of the parahumans—Surge and Swallow. I was pretty surprised those names hadn't already been taken, honestly.

"Excellent." I stood up from behind the bar counter and slid over it. "Now that you're the only one left standing, Hounder, let's get back to what I was saying."

"Fuck you, bitch!" The blaster shot another orb at me, which flew straight into the ground. The really sad thing about this was Hounder's ability relied on his physical muscles to control his kinetic balls' direction. Regent could no-sell him in his sleep.

"Hounder, listen." I didn't speak very loudly, even with my insects adding to my voice, but the other parahuman immediately shut up. Most people would if they felt a tickle at their throat and turned to see a dozen black widows lining their shoulders. "Listen carefully, because I'm not going to say this again, okay?

"I was going to do this differently, but now that you tried to kill us, you only have two options at this point." I held my forefinger into the air. "One, you get… heated again, and I'll dispose of you.

"Or two," I said, flicking a second finger, "You give me the information I want, and we don't have to do anything nasty."

"Th-the… y-you…" Hounder gulped audibly, still staring wide-eyed at my widows. I hadn't really shown off my deadlier insects to this group until now, so I guess he was shocked by the sudden threat of death.

Maybe he just had a fear of spiders. I don't know. Tattletale probably did, but if she knew what was good for her, she'd keep her trap shut. I wasn't completely kidding about that frying pan, and she'd have known it.

"The info, if you please?" I tapped the counter, causing a thump to echo in the bar. The place had pretty good acoustics, I had to say.

"T-the… the back, c-computer…" Hounder was starting to shiver, but still pointed to door behind the bar counter. "P-password's…"

"Disneyland?" Tattletale blinked, before walking into the indicated room, muttering. "Seriously?"

"Good." I nodded to Brian, who obliged with an aspect of Swallow's power and knocked out Hounder with a blow to back of the head.

"Now, I'm sure the rest of you were listening in just fine." I visibly caused my head to scan the room, catching the eyes of the rest of the Delta Staid that were still conscious. It was about presentation, really. Even if I didn't need to physically move to actually 'see' them, I wanted them to see me see them. "Unlike Hounder, who is a useless moron, you get three choices."

"One," I held up my finger again. "You stay in the Delta Staid. You dust yourself off, lick your wounds, and move on. Trying to eek out an existence, same as always. I don't particularly recommend this option, and I'll tell you why, but I'm still leaving it in the open.

"Two," I continued, while letting some of my bugs start traveling towards me, slowly. "You leave town. Hell, you might as well just leave the state. Drop everything unimportant, grab all the money you can, and just run like a bat out of hell. Because, you see, the Undersiders are not just here to meet and greet the other gangs of Cambridge. We're here to stay, my friends.

"And that gets into the third option, which is to join us. I hope I don't have to explain the benefits of this option. I like to think the results of my endeavors would speak for themselves. If you're under our banner, there will be a lot of changes from other gangs, but I can assure you that a lot of it will be for the better."

At this point, I had every bug in the bar circled around me. I stepped forward, and had my bugs move away from my feet as they touched the floor, only to merge back as I took another step again. Again. Presentation, Taylor, I reminded myself.

"I'll give you a little time to think, until my associate is back, but this will be a onetime offer." I spoke solemnly as I stared at my real target for this speech. I really, really wanted to hook this one. I'd had Tattletale run me through any scrap of data we could find on her. I needed to be scary, but controlled. Not hard, but the real selling point was that I needed a little bit more flair for the dramatic—not really something I thought I had too great a handle on, honestly. It tended to come off as somewhat cheesy.

But then, even that can be trumped by just how scared some people are of bugs.

She didn't look scared though. Omni, another name I was surprised wasn't already taken, blinked owlishly at me behind her domino mask. She looked… awkward, almost. A newbie, so new in fact she barely had a decent costume put together despite being a tinker.

And that was the rub. A tinker. Despite all our expansions, we had yet to actually pick one up, and Omni looked to be quite the prize. As far as what most people seemed to be aware, her specialty looked to be in incorporation of tools. Like a Swiss army knife, but less knife, toothpick and whatnot, and more like laser rifle, shielding device and jetpack. Except, from what Tattletale had put together, that was either a ruse, or Omni herself didn't understand her specialty. What Tattletale had guessed was that she was more like a tinker version of Accord. The greater the complexity of the device, the more in tune she was to create it. The only real limitation of it might be the cost of the materials would be increasingly large the bigger the creation got.

It was like a dream come true—if I could get her to join, anyway.

I'd been staring at her intently for a minute by this point, to which she'd been returning my gaze in equal measure, barring a few erratic blinks. I couldn't quite place the expression on her face. I'd like to say that she at least wasn't put off by my delivery, but I was never one for the dramatic—which Tattletale said Omni seemed to like—so I couldn't be totally sure.

"Got it!" Speak of the devil, Tattletale popped out of the back, swinging the chain her USB was connected to. "We're good to go."

"Then the time has come to make a choice." I scanned my captive audience again. Some were looking down, shaking or otherwise, some were staring at me with a wide range of different emotions, and a handful, of course, weren't even conscious. The latter didn't really matter, they were only a handful of goons. Omni was my main objective here, with maybe Periwinkle or Swallow also being a possibility. Surge would be unlikely to be interested, and I didn't even bother with Hounder for a reason.

"Choose carefully, you're no—"

"I'll join!" Omni practiced jumped, and likely would have if she wasn't wrapped tightly in Parian's bindings. "Please, let me join! Oh, holy crap, that was cool. How do you store your insects? Or, I mean, you must have a number of huge number of spiders to have crafted that suit, how did you prep the silk? And clean it. Maintenance must be important to keep its durability, right? Can you control them finely enough for them to weave for you, or do you just make it with your hands—oh wait, you must have really fine control given how you were walking and talking like that, right? Oh geez…!"

I paused, blinking for a second as Omni continued to ramble on, before shooting a glance at Tattletale—who, unhelpfully, just shrugged.

"Dear god, shut up." Swallow, the only one without her hands bound, slapped both of them to her face, groaning. "You stupid motormouth! I can't stand you! Just get out of here so I don't have to hear you ranting anymore!"

Omni quickly turned to Swallow, and just smiled. "But isn't it exciting, Molly? This is a really big gang, and they're trying to recruit us! They must have so many resources, and… and well, stuff! Stuff to mess with! You like stuff, right?"

I sighed as my recruiting effort turned into something decidedly less dramatic and serious as Omni, who turned out to be called Liza—and wouldn't _that_ just get confusing—babbled on to her best friend Molly about how amazing this all was, while the latter tried to continually shut her up—to no success at all.

In the end, though, all three of them—plus thirty of the goons—did join, so I guess it was a success. Sure, they'd need to be vetted, but Tattletale loved that process, or so she told me.

One step to conquering Cambridge down, I suppose?

* * *

Basic point: Dinah says nothing. Taylor cuts no apparel. Does not surrender, and instead… expands. She's got a world to save, after all. These are the voyages of the Brockton Bay Undersiders, exploring new cities, recruiting new minions, and generally just goofing off because there's a time for seriousness, and that's just about never (says everyone but Taylor, as they try to get her to relax).


	2. Good Eating

I drooled.

Just a little. Just a single droplet slid down the side of my mouth, that's all. I licked my lips, dipping my tongue out to grab the saliva and swallowing the copious amounts of it in my mouth down; all the while trying to ignore the surge of hunger that ached in me. It wasn't a sensation that squeezed at my stomach, not a yawning pit that begged for sustenance. No, it was a want—a desire to taste, to devour. It tingled in my mouth. My tongue almost seemed to sizzle with a need to drink in more flavor. A _want_, not a need, I reminded myself. It might not be a thunderous difference to some, but to me it was the line in the dirt. A marker I could point at and say, "No, not any more than this."

Because quite frankly if I didn't I'd go insane.

The worst part of it all was that I knew I should be revolted by it all, but all I could do was hold it back. I had to constantly remind myself that I couldn't. At first, I'd tried to convince myself that it was wrong—which it was, obviously—and that it was gross, and it was unacceptable. Things that I just picked up naturally, or sometimes was taught as a child, it was that type of thing. I could vaguely pulling off the wings of a fly, or eating my own boogers. Not because I liked it, really, but just because I could, because I wanted to see what happened. Things like that. Sometimes I'd get scolded for it, or just picked it up like… like some sort of osmosis. I don't know. I just learned it as I grew up, right?

Morals. That's what I'm getting at, I guess.

Sometimes people just picked up things like that. Aversions to spiders, fear or disgust of blood, or heights. Experiences, maybe, but it just sort of developed naturally, right?

The point was that just wasn't good enough. That type of thing only went so far when you're confronted with blinding evidence to the contrary every day—every waking moment, practically.

My nose twitched, a sweet tang tickled at my nostrils.

Shit.

I could _smell_ it.

The tingle in my mouth seemed to zap down my spine. I clenched my fists, fighting the trembling, restless energy that seemed to spring to life in my limbs. I could barely stop my shaking—the desire to just say screw it to everything and pounce, to feast.

God. I really was going insane.

"For fuck's sake, Clements, stop dripping everywhere. Gross." I scathed, the energy in my limbs seemed to burst out in my tone. The little sycophant actually jumped, looking at me wide-eyed. Heh.

"U-uh…" She actually stuttered, looking at me in amazement as blood dripped out of her nose. She'd been sniffling for the past minute trying to keep it in, but I could still smell it. God. A freaking bloody nose. That's it. That's all it took. Probably just from the dry air temperature.

"Wh-what's it to you, Hebert?" Madison's retort, if it could be called that, barely had any heat to it. She looked mildly freaked at my outburst, and started dabbing at her nose with a tissue. "F-freak. I wasn't…"

I already started ignoring her, trying to find some resemblance of calm.

This couldn't last. Not like this.

I couldn't last. If I didn't want to go on a rampage, I was going to have to look for an alternative.

It was something I'd first avoided thinking about. When I'd woke up in the hospital with all these strange urges, I'd been able to bottle it up, but by the time I'd gotten out, it'd already been itching away at me. When I'd finally gotten back to school, I'd already given up on the pretenses and delusions in my mind of actually being a normal person anymore. Now? Now I just fought not to be a monster.

Unfortunately… unfortunately I was going to have to give up a little bit more ground. The line in the dirt just got pushed back quite a ways.

But damn it, what else could I do?

* * *

The moon was full.

I had to give a sharp laugh at that. I'd been holing myself up whenever I could, ignoring my urges, and largely ignoring the world as much as I could. I hadn't noticed the phases of the moon as I tried to push the world away. The bullying used to bother me so much—used to chip away at my self esteem and identity, but when I'd gotten back to school I'd actually _relished_ the attention. In some ways, it still sort of hurt, but I took that hurt and wrapped myself up in it like a blanket. I held onto it like a lifeline.

Because it was. It seriously was.

I'd already let go of my hate and fear of my bullies. It'd only be a few short weeks, but those days stretched so, so far. They couldn't hurt me anymore—not really—and their attempts did nothing more than distract me. And I had sorely, sorely needed distractions.

But as I'd decided earlier in the day, that just wasn't enough anymore. I had to actually do something to quench the hunger. If I didn't…

Well, it wouldn't end well. Not for me, not for anybody.

It still looked like it wasn't going to end well, but I had to try something. Anything.

I looked at the mauled dog in my hands. Blood—unappetizing blood—dripped down my hands messily. My first attempt was a failure, obviously. Honestly, I hadn't expected it to satisfy my hunger. I'd never felt anything from strays, or pets, or… hell, anything but other humans.

I glanced in a window, and stared at the monster reflected back out.

It looked human, but it definitely wasn't. The hoodie over my head drooped down and kept most of my hidden, but the blood spatters all over my face and clothes… It caked me, and I never felt more comfortable.

I dropped the animal. It landed on the concrete with a wet, fleshy splat. All of the organs and guts, and blood, now just so much warm meat.

I knew it'd turn out this way. I could feel it in my bones. I'd fought it, and maybe, maybe, maybe, I was still fighting it. And I was still losing. Slowly, or perhaps swiftly given it had barely been a month and a half, I was being eroded away.

And it felt good.

That was the worst part. If I could just look away, cling to the disgust and negativity, I could probably live with it. I'd feel guilty as hell all the time, but I could just lock it away, deep, deep down. But the opposite? Feeling happy and just… _alive_, at the sensation of it all? That was something much different.

But I still hadn't sated my hunger. I felt a sense of anticipation, a building of tension in my limbs. My body already knew what was to come, even if the brain fought tooth and nail to avoid as much as it could.

So, I ran. Despite the moon shining overhead, I flew from shadow to shadow, blending in like I was made of the stuff. I was already close to the small, shitty territory held by the worst scum of the city. I'd wandered this way intentionally, even as I looked for smaller prey.

I wondered, briefly, if I wasn't making a mistake hunting for some Merchants. Not, as if I had any decency left for it, because they were human, but because they might very well be diseased or something. Or maybe if it came down to it, would feeding on a druggie drug me up, or something? It was probably a bad idea. Maybe I should pick at another criminal element in the city, it wasn't like I was lacking in options, but it wasn't just because they were criminals that I'd decided on them. When it came right down to it, nobody was going to miss any of them if they went missing or dead.

Huh. Guess I was a bit of a coward too. Didn't that just grate?

Finally, _finally_, I found what I was looking for. It had taken no more than a minute or two to reach my destination, but it was a compounded wait. I'd been waiting for this since I'd gotten out of the hospital, since I was put in the hospital—hell, maybe I'd been waiting for this even longer than that, who knows? It was, perhaps, more subtle than I would have figured. A lone man dressed shabbily, but wearing gang colors all the same. Standing guard and looking bored as hell at a dilapidated apartment building's busted doorway. I could _feel_ the presence of others in the place. Smell the chemicals. Hear the laughter, desperate and ugly.

I stopped, and focused. I listened passed the laughter, passed the chatter. I could hear it. The steady, rapid thumps of pumping veins. It was the sound of blood spurting throughout the bodies of twelve different people, or rather my twelve victims. I could feel it, more desperate and overwhelming than ever. The hunger—the want, I tried to remind myself, but no, at this point it was definitely a need—peaked, and shuddered through my body. The world was a blur as I leapt with each step, faster perhaps than any normal human could see.

And I pounced. No, no, I didn't just pounce—I came down in a fury. The guard didn't even see me as he fiddled with his poorly concealed gun. I dropped down and literally ripped off his head. A quick squeeze and pull, snapping his spine, and tearing off the muscles, tearing it off like a weed.

Before he even began to fall to the ground I was already moving, the world blurring around me as I ripped through the Merchant den. I felt like I should have been thundering with the speed I was moving, but even as I crushed the skull of another Merchant, blood, gore and bone fragments splattering, there was only the ambient noises and chatter masking the sounds of my rampage. I knew where every occupant was, and there was little in the way of doors—or at least intact ones. I snapped a neck, caved another skull in, and tore another head off within seconds of another. The ones with guns never saw me, the ones full of drugs weren't even conscious of me. The head or the neck, I always focused on killing swiftly.

In less than a minute, there wasn't a single living person in the building save for me. I'd twisted around the last one's head with a visceral pop.

And I _reveled_.

It was over so quickly, it passed by in almost an instant, but that instant was glorious. I'd run through the building so quickly, yet so quietly. It wasn't even a fight, it was just a slaughter. None of them had even known they were about to die—they just did. I willed it, and it was done. It wasn't even difficult. No, it was easy.

But I couldn't take time to bask in that sensation. My hunger called. It throbbed. It was a thousand times worse than anything I'd felt since the hospital, and it felt _amazing_.

I ran back through the building just as quickly—no, even faster than before. Grabbing bodies like so much slabs of meat and carrying them with ease, bringing them all in the lobby-ish area of the building.

And then I feasted. Mouth watering, I gorged myself. Each bite was a more than just taste, it was an experience. I ate everything. Raw, fleshy muscle and flesh, chunks of organs or whole, and the bones too. Everything. I'd first tried eating the bone marrow like crab, but quickly just crushed it all down, breaking it down to mush—delicious mush—and gulping it with relish.

When I was finished, there was nothing left but ripped, bloody clothes and scattered belongings. There were guns and drugs lying about in the apartment, probably. I left it be. I wouldn't even know what to do with the stuff even if I'd had the desire to take it all. Maybe there was even money stashed somewhere, but even that had no appeal to me right now.

I was fully sated. Apparently it took ten men and two women for me to be satisfied from the hunger after half a dozen weeks, but I was finally, _finally_ sated. It was a feeling I could barely imagine. Like the filling of a gaping hole in my being that I hadn't even realized needed filling.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I might feel guilty, or doubt, or want to kill myself, or something. But for the night… that clichéd night with a full moon, I would be content. I had no doubts. I fully believed I would sleep with ease for the first time since I'd woken up with these powers.


	3. A Scene at the World's End

Colin woke up suddenly. He didn't even recall falling asleep as he'd pounded away at his resources, looking for a solution, anything, no matter how insane. It was a fervor born from pure desperation. He had been running himself ragged for days on end. How could he not, after all?

The world was ending.

Perhaps it could already be said to have ended.

But the moment he regained consciousness, he knew something was wrong. It was obvious, after all. He wasn't in his lab. He didn't have his armor—in fact, he was naked. Most obvious was the fact that he was tied to a chair.

It didn't take a tinker genius to realize he was in danger.

Immediately, almost without prompting, solutions began shooting through his brain. It was sometimes a curse—efficiency—as not all the solutions were the most feasible in his current restraints, but there were some…

"Morning, Wallis." The voice shook his thoughts for a moment as his gaze went from inward to outward, trying to spy his captor.

It was a girl. A young girl, in fact. Dark blonde. Somewhat thin, but not incredibly so. Freckles. No mask or costume, just some mildly dirty, ordinary clothing. No expression.

"Why did you kidnap me?" Even as Colin spoke, engaging his enemy, his mind was still at work trying to pull an escape plan in motion. 'If I can keep her distracted, I can try and reach the pistol I have implanted in my heel.'

It could work. The pistol fired a shot of scorching plasma, just a single shot, but it'd be enough to punch a hole through someone without any sort of armor. Although if his captor had any sort of defensive parahuman ability, it wouldn't work all that amazingly.

Still. It was a chance he'd have to take.

"Lot of reasons, really." The girl flashed him a tight smile—it hit him immediately. It was only a moment, but a flash of insight allowed him to recognize that grin.

"Tattletale." Colin breathed out for a second, almost letting himself relax. "Is it information you want? You don't need to kidnap me. With all that's going on, I'll gladly give you anything you wa—"

Colin stopped as Lisa pulled up a handgun and flicked off the safety.

"Don't go making promises you can't keep, Wallis." Tattletale's expression dripped more down into a frown—not a face he was used to seeing on her. She almost perpetually walked around with some sort of smug grin.

"What are you doing?" Colin's eyes darted from side to side, trying to take in anything else that might give him an edge. Looking around the busted room—it really was in poor shape. He might still be able to grasp his pistol if he strained his legs hard enough under the chair, but without her noticing? That would be a bigger problem.

"Something I've been wanting to do for a long, long time." Tattletale's hand wavered slightly, not pointing directly at his head anymore. "But I suppose that can wait for a few more minutes. I bet you're wondering why. Go on, go ahead and ask why."

"Why?" Colin obliged, but mostly because he had another burning question in his mind. Well, that and he still needed time to think. He was absolutely sure he could flick out the pistol and grab it in less than a second, but that wouldn't exactly allow him to shoot Tattletale. Maybe if he knocked over the chair…? "Why are you doing this now? It's the end of the world, Tattletale. Think! We need to pool our resources, not squander them!"

"Oh, Wallis." Tattletale sighed heavily. "You just don't get it, do you? It's exactly _because_ it's the end of the world that I'm doing this. You think there's going to be some magical solution to beat Scion, but I can tell you: that ship has long since been sunk.

"We've already blown our big chance to kill the loony. Even Cauldron, or what's left of it anyway, is just doing delaying tactics to keep Scion away from the groups they think have a better chance of hiding. _Hiding_, not fighting back in any way. The only way Scion's going down at this point is when he just runs out of steam."

"You don't know that!" Colin felt a rage swell up in his chest. He wasn't going to give up and just let everything die, especially running and dying. He had too many things to do, and he still needed to save Dragon. "You _can't_ know that! Scion's immune to your powers, to all Thinker powers!"

"Oh man, fuck you, Wallis." Tattletale's expression settled into a pained grimace. "Yeah, Scion might have some sort of weakness, but you know what? That doesn't matter. Mankind has already given up, even if you're still banging away with your toys because you're too stupid… too… idealistic to see it. And you know what? Fuck you. Fuck you so fucking much. Took you long enough to actually start giving a damn.

"You know," Tattletale gave another sigh. "I used to not even give a damn myself. I heard about the world ending and just said, 'so what?'"

"But then you changed!" Colin interrupted. "You started using everything you could to prepare and stop it, Tattletale! Practically half the resources we had at our use was because you—"

Colin's heart clenched as a shot rang out, and he felt a burst of pain—through his leg.

"Fuck, you're hopeless." Tattletale growled. "Do you know _why_ I changed? Why I started giving a damn? It was because of _her_. Because of just one girl. And do you know what happened to her? Do you, you fucker?"

"Who?" Colin's voice came out hoarse. It wasn't from the pain in his leg.

"Her name was Taylor," Tattletale told him. "You might, just might, recall her as Skitter."

He did.

"You killed her, Wallis." Tattletale gave him a sharp glare. "You killed bunches of people that day, but Taylor? Taylor was important to me. I wanted to kill you ever since.

"But I put that aside. You know why?" Tattletale barked a short laugh. "Because I wanted to do what she would have done. I wanted to hold something of hers alive—anything—so I tried to do everything I could to do the… do the right thing."

Colin let out a slow breath, and quickly tried to put the last pieces of his plan together in his mind. He was only going to get one shot—almost literally—and if he failed he was definitely going to die. Tattletale wasn't going let him go.

"But in the end, all of that failed. I couldn't do a goddamn thing. I couldn't…" Tattletale swallowed audibly, a shuddering shook her body. "I couldn't live up to Taylor. I couldn't save anybody. So, at the very fucking least, I'm going to avenge her."

Colin pushed his chair back with one foot, ducking the other back at the same time to grab at the pistol he shot out of his heel. Using the force of his own body weight from the fall, he _yanked_ his arms at the same time it hit the ground—breaking the flimsy wood—and tumbling around a rotten looking couch so he could pull his arms out from behind his back. Difficult? Exceedingly. But doable for a Tinker like him.

He jumped around the other end of the couch in a crouch and took aim with his pistol—

Lisa just stared back.

Colin froze. A cold feeling settled onto his heart as he slowly stood up.

And dropped his gun.

"Smart move." Tattletale nodded, leisurely pulled up her handgun again.

"The weight was off." Colin shrugged. "A Tinker can always tell when their weapons have been tampered with."

"Yeah, I can't build anything, but I can sure as hell mess anybody's shit up." Tattletale flashed a brief, foxy grin, before her expression settled back into the same, cold grimace. "You know, Wallis. I've killed a bunch of people before. But I've always done it because it needed to be done, you know? Coil needed to die because he was fucking things up, both for me and for Dinah. Accord needed to die 'cause he just couldn't get along with anybody—no matter how damn much I tried to coax or appease his anal retentiveness. Jack needed to die—not that I was able to do it in time—'cause he was going to end the world.

"But you, Wallis?" Tattletale shook her head. "You, I want to kill. Just for me. Just because you killed my best friend, and I could never forgive that, no matter how much she might have wanted me to."

"Tattlet—"

"Fuck you, Wallis." Tattletale looked Colin straight in the eye. "I'll see you in hell."

And pulled the trigger.


	4. Hereditary

It's funny how some realizations just sort of creep up on you. No epiphany, no sudden light bulb, just gradual dawning as the pieces come together in your mind. Maybe it was because I was so young at the time, but I was really more focused on, or perhaps I should say upset by the fact that my parents had a huge fight.

It was when I was nine years old, just a few weeks after my birthday in fact. The fight erupted quite late in the night, but looking back on it, it really started quite early in the morning. I remember that morning well, despite it not really being too out of the ordinary, because it made my mom smoke a cigarette. Even back then, I knew she only took those things out, especially in front of me, when she was stressed. My dad always scolded her, softly, when she did, but never made too big of a deal about it.

Maybe that's why I always liked the smell of cigarette smoke. I know it's bad for you, and I've never smoked myself, but my mother always had a tinge of the stench on her. I could always catch a whiff of it, usually quite faint, but still poignantly present. It was comforting, really.

Anyway, it was the news channel that started it. I wasn't even listening to it, so I don't remember what exactly was being said, but looking up things later, it's easy to guess that it was about the arrest of a certain criminal group, and their subsequent imprisonment. My mother just sort of looked at the TV screen for a few moments, her lips slowly turning white as she pressed them together in a growing grimace. Even then, I didn't really notice it was bothering her until she shook out her packet of Marlboro and lit one up.

But I didn't let it stick in my mind too heavily. I went back to fiddling with some origami—a gift my mom had picked up earlier that day, just because, she said—and let her blow away her stress. She never really liked it when I got too clingy when she was feeling down, so it seemed a better idea just to let my mother—who knew best—to do what she felt like doing.

In the end, I don't really think it would have mattered. My mom was always the most willful of the whole family. Later, much, much later, dad told me stories about how much stress she'd given both her parents in some of her choices. Really, the same could be applied to dad and me too.

Regardless, I went through the day, and things went along normally. Dad got home, still none too happy about his work, but kept trying to keep things steady, or so he said. Mom didn't say anything about the news, or the cigarette, not until much, much later after that. It was probably around midnight, and I couldn't get to bed thanks to a few sugary snacks I'd snuck into bed with me.

As soon as I heard a low yell, I'd jumped in bed, crawling up onto my knees, and pulling off my covers. The neighborhood I lived in wasn't gang-ridden, but it wasn't an altogether safe place to ignore anything out of the ordinary, and yelling in my house, as far as I'd known, was quite out of the ordinary.

I'd crept out of my room, hearing a handful of words while I concentrated on not stepping on any squeaky spots.

"—serious…!" My dad's voice was raised in a harsh whisper, a faux-shout of sorts, which normally might have caused my mom to shush him down at the time of night it was, but instead I heard my mom raise her voice to match it, albeit less whispery—just very firm.

"Danny, have I ever joked about something like this?" She was using her 'teacher' voice, a sort of firm, but clear no-nonsense tone.

"No—damn it, Anne!" My dad swore, and I heard a bang—his fist on the table, I guessed as a twinge of horror crept up my spine. "This is exactly the type of thing you left to avoid! Hell, you knew this was going to happen."

"No, Danny, I left because I trusted her to avoid this! Yes, she was always on the fringe side of things, but she could be reasonable if she didn't get whipped into a frenzy by some scandal or controversy. I trusted my friends to keep her calm if she did." I could hear a twinge of something in my mom's tone I couldn't identify—an almost disheartened tone.

"All the more reason why you shouldn't even think about this," dad said. The anger in his tone was clear even without seeing his face. "Anne, please. Think about it. That story has been getting blared on the news everywhere, _everyone_ knows about it. If you start fussing around, people are going to remember a certain lady who was part of that group, and throw you together with their insanity. God, I can't believe _I'm_ the one being the voice of reason here."

"Danny, I _have_ thought about this, and yes, I could be labeled a crazy like them, but I'm not just going to stand by and do nothing. Someone has to do something and—"

"Well, let someone _else_ do something then!" I heard another bang, causing me to cringe.

"Danny… Danny, look at me." I blinked as I heard something in my mom's tone. Somewhere along the lines she'd slipped out of her firm, steady voice and went a notch lower into an angry growl. "Look. At. Me."

"Anne—"

"Shut the hell up, Danny, and look at this!" I couldn't see whatever was it—a look in my mom's eye, I thought at time, but now I imagine something a bit different. Either way, I didn't know. "I decided to be a teacher because I wanted to change the world, Danny. I wanted to pass something on to the new generation because I believe—because I _hope_ for something better than what we have right now. That hasn't, and won't ever change, no matter what."

"Then be a teacher, don't be a… why are you even considering this now of all times, why like this?" Dad's voice had lost all of the previous anger and just sounded sad instead.

"Because it's now of all times, because of all them got locked up, _because_ nobody else is going to want to touch these issues for fear of being labeled a psycho like the rest of them." Mom's voice was so soft I could barely hear it, but it still held a measure of heat to it—vehemence. "Because… an ordinary teacher is just a single person, but like this, I can act as a symbol. There's power in this, beyond just the obvious. People have a respect of this, a fear, maybe, but there are things that can only be won through it in the world.

"Look, Danny." A softer tone entered my mom's voice. "We're both riled up, so let's shelve this talk for later, okay? I don't think I'm going to change my mind, but you know I've always loved a good debate. Level with me, try not to get angry, and we'll take some more time to discuss, okay?"

"…Okay," my dad agreed, but both he and I knew that my mom had already won the argument. There were some more heated nights that I tried to eavesdrop on, but they were generally too quiet for me to hear as well as that first one. It never really entered my mind at the time to think too deeply about _what_ they were talking about; I was too focused on the ghastly fact that my parents weren't, in fact, perfectly in synch with one another, and would never, ever get angry with one another. I'd heard about troubled marriages before, but it had never even entered my mind until that point that my parents might have had one. They didn't, really, of course, but that's what my mind focused on at the time.

It wasn't until years later that that dawning realization I mentioned before crept up on me. Three years later, in fact, when I was twelve years old. I'd become quite a bit more clever than sneaking closer to the stairs in listening in on my parent's conversations—mostly due to them being quite a bit more careful in their discussions. In some ways, I do wonder why I never just went downstairs and just asked them what they were talking about—but in others, I think I just knew instinctively that they didn't want me to know, so I just listened in with my walkie-talkies.

Yes, walkie-talkies. I was able to ask for them as a Christmas present, and then accidentally 'lost' one at times in very inconspicuous places. I was a very budding actress, if I didn't say so myself, in that I generally did a lot of play-acting with the walkie-talkies, which my mom found adorable, and—okay, fine, I actually discovered the mention of listening in with them by accident, but it worked out well enough.

Anyway. After a while, I was able to unburden my concerns of my parents having marital problems after I found out that some fights between couples was natural—or dare I ask even healthy. I'd already grown into the habit of listening in at times, however, so I didn't bother to stop spying whenever they stayed up later then usual. Sometimes they did talk about 'this', or 'that group', but I was kind of stupid in some ways, and never really caught on to the vague notions that should have clued me in.

At first I did wonder why they bothered with the charade when in private, unless they knew I was spying on them, but I've come to realize that it was for _them_, not anybody else. A distance factor to keep that life separate. The masquerade, of sorts, was only shattered years later—three years, as I said.

Some nights, both my parents were out late, and I never thought anything of it. It didn't usually happen too often, they tried to make sure at least one of them was there to tuck me into bed, or give me a snack if I was feeling hungry, but it did happen. I was a big girl anyway, so I could take care of myself those times. I just shrugged it off as them both being busy with work. That illusion was lifted when my walkie-talkie crackled with noise, waking me from my dozing slumber.

"Shit! Goddamnit!" My dad tended to curse when he got angry. He never got angry in front of me, but I'd heard a decent amount of swearing during my spying. My mom though? She swore only very rarely, and very lightly. I hadn't even thought she had it in her to say more than 'hell' in a heated whisper—until that night anyway. Her voiced was tight—pained—as she flung everything I'd heard my from dad and more in a harsh growl.

"Annette, oh Christ. Weh-we need to do something more than th-this!" My dad was stuttering—panicked. I was already sitting up in bed as I felt a surge of my own panicked energy flooding my body. "Th-the hospital, or-or-or—"

"No!" My mom gave another growl. "Danny, keep it together! For fuck's sake, this hurts enough as it is! No hospitals, no doctors! I can deal with this. It just hurts like a goddamn bitching… gggrhh…"

"Annette!" I heard shout from my room even without my walkie-talkie, and I was halfway to the door before I heard my mom's voice again.

"Danny, goddamnit, keep it together, don't wake up Taylor!" I stopped—hand touching my doorknob—as I heard an odd tremble in my mom's voice that wasn't the fierce heat of whatever was hurting her. "Sh-she… I don't want her to see me like this.

"Please, Danny, just set me down. I can fix this, I just need to focus, okay?"

"Okay… okay…"

I stepped back and sat back on my bed, I was bursting with energy from the panic I'd felt, but also feeling subdued due to the barrel of emotions rolling inside my stomach, and no real outlet for either. Tears welled up in my eyes as I tried to sort myself out—I felt somewhat abandoned, hurt that my mom didn't want me with her despite whatever extreme pain she might have been in. I'm not entirely certain how long I was sitting there.

"Annette… Anne… you can't keep doing this." My dad's voice broke me out of my daze. "This solo thing… it can't work. You need to join the—"

"The Protectorate?" My mom gave a harsh bark of a laugh. "What a fucking joke! You think they would have helped with this, Danny? Dream on."

"They cou—"

"No, they couldn't have. They would have just fucking cowered in their goddamn rig or fancy building and let all the other gang scum bottom feed as usual." My mom gave a long, loud sigh. "Danny, we've talked about this before. Dozens of times. That incident last month? That's a perfect example. They let themselves get walked all over, and then just let Lung go and start mucking around the city like he owns it."

"Damn it, Anne, you _need_ help, you can't ju—"

"Then _help_ me, Danny! You know you can, as more than just as my support." My mom gave another sigh. "I know, I'm sorry. You don't need to say anything, we've talked about this too. I wouldn't want to put anybody else in danger either, and I know you just want what's best fo—"

"I'll do it." My dad's whisper cut off whatever mom was going to say, leaving an odd silence.

"Danny?" Mom sounded stunned.

"I said I'll do it, Anne." Dad's voice got firmer, but still had a measure of shakiness to it. "God, I'll do anything. I don't want to ever have to see you like that, not ever again. Never ever…"

"Oh, Danny, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I hadn't ever heard my mom panic, not quite like this, but I knew why. "Please, don't cry, Danny. I-I'm sorry…"

I flicked off my walkie-talkie, and tried to get to bed. I knew one floor down my parents were crying just as much as I was. I didn't get much sleep that night.

At this point you might say, wait, that's not a dawning realization! And you'd be right; the fact that my mom was a cape was shoved under my nose pretty blatantly that night. In some ways, I was pretty shocked, but in others, it seemed sort of natural to me. To me, after all, my parents had always been my heroes. Sure, I had an Alexandria lunchbox, and she _was_ pretty darn cool, but my mom and dad were the ones that opened up the world to me. The fact that my mom had super powers wasn't too odd, when I looked at it like that. The fact that she'd been hurt, apparently hurt really bad, that was something that was a bigger shock overall. The thought of my mom dying… it gave me a nightmare or two, for sure.

So, you might ask, what's with this supposed dawning realization. Well, that didn't come later. It started with that night, but it didn't really come over me until a month or two later. Honestly, like I said, I was kind of stupid. I did some more research here and there on capes, but never really clued into who my mom's hero identity was. She was a vigilante, I knew, since she said she didn't trust the Protectorate, but no matter how much I looked through the forums and wikis, I could never find someone that could fit the bill.

One day, a month or two later like I mentioned, I was walking home from school, and I saw a red figure in the sky, shooting across the city like a jet. I briefly recalled the cape's name as Cherufe from reading more about parahumans than I really needed to, and walked on without thinking about it too much.

Then, the realization. I recalled some recent news on forums of a new gang forming in Brockton Bay calling themselves the Brockton Association. I remembered the figure I saw in the sky. I remembered the news three years ago. The scent of smoke.

I stopped walking, and let myself slump, sighing a little as all the little things finally came together. I really was an idiot for not realizing sooner.

I'm Taylor Hebert, and I'm the daughter of a super villain.


	5. S-Class

Weld let a slow breath, more of a steady exhale than a real sigh—an attempt at releasing the tension building up on his nerves. He eyed his team warily, noting the grim visages, and came up blank on anything to say at helping ease the aura of gloom blanketing everyone. The helicopter's steady chopping was loud, but hardly made him inaudible if he felt like giving a speech.

But what could he say, really? Everything he could have mentioned had already been said at this point, yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that ad nauseum. The past few weeks—hell, the past few _months_—had been brutal. Keeping up morale over that much time was a lost cause when nothing you did felt like it had any sort of impact, like trying to beat back the tide.

Weld glanced outside, the overview of the city of Boston—_his_ city, really. It was ironic given that he was just the leader of the Wards, but the state of emergency had left him as the leader in many ways. Not officially, of course, but when everyone looked to you for directions, even the people who should have been far older and far wiser than you, you had to stand up and take the reins.

"Nearing the location, sir!" Their pilot shouted over the noise of the helicopter, lacking their communication headsets.

"Thanks, Richard." Weld gave a shout back, and glanced over his team. It was a mishmash of sorts. All of the old members of his team had been shifted out as Protectorate and PRT leaders made judgment calls ability uses. He was only half familiar as he would have liked to be with them—and perhaps that was part of the problem with the atmosphere—but he needed to at least bring all their minds into the game. It was, in a strange way, a bit of a breather from their usual sorties.

"Okay, remember everyone, this is a hostage situation." Weld pointed at the skyscraper coming into view. "The Teeth have taken at least a hundred people captive, if not more, and are threatening to kill every one of them unless their leader gets released."

At this point, he would have expected Talltale to have made a joke about it being some movie cliché, but no. The giant boy, hunkered down in the helicopter's relatively cramped space, didn't make any motion to interrupt.

"For obvious reasons, that's not going to happen, but we're still going to make an attempt to rescue the hostages." Weld pointed at the skyscraper again. "We'll be making a landing on the roof, as Vista's team cooperates with the Boston police force to storm the entrance as a distraction.

"The hope," and what a faint hope it was, "is that the Teeth will be interested in at least fighting back for a time before they kill their captives. Our job is to use that time and rescue them."

It was a poor plan at best, but it was literally the only thing they could do at the moment. The Teeth hadn't given them any time, and actually killed their negotiator outright when he'd tried to stall for time—over the phone, from a mile away. Some sort of sonar ability coupled with a long range tinker sniper rifle. The bullet had killed three others and injury several more on top of that. The Teeth parahuman, Deadwake, was part of the reason why their plan was a really, really bad idea.

But the only alternative was just to leave the hostages to die. All the other ones thrown out in the open simply took too long given that no parahumans with more useful abilities were available.

"The hostages are likely in the fiftieth floor, so be ready to rush down about ten flights of stairs, either as quietly as possible, or as fast as possible while under fire." Everyone had already gone over the layout of the building as much as possible, so Weld was confident in there being no big surprises in the terrain.

"Any questions?" Weld looked over his time again, and saw nothing but grim determination. They'd probably already gone over the possibility of failure dozens of times in their heads already, but none of them were flinching. Despite the inanity of it, Weld felt a bit of pride in that. They were all good people.

"Then let's go!" They weren't making a direct landing on the roof, just passing over it and diving out. Weld signaled Quagmire, the shaker of their team out first, and quickly followed with after grabbing Marybell in a bridal carry. Talltale, Lee Dart, and Partisan were all right behind them.

Quagmire glowed briefly as he landed, and the stone-like tiles of the roof seemed to melt slightly as they lost their cohesiveness. Everyone's touchdown on the material gave a wet splat, and began to sink into it, before Quagmire released his power's hold. The roof gave a slight shove, as if made of rubber, before returning to its previous state.

Marybell floated out of Weld's arms and glided over to the roof entrance, flanked by Lee Dart and Partisan, with Weld, Talltale, and Quagmire close behind. In some ways, it was lucky that the roof access led directly to the stairwell they needed to travel down, but in others, it made for an incredibly tense situation. Uncertain if their intrusion had been detected or not, given their radio blackout, and thus uncertain if they were going to be running into an ambush, or even if they weren't going to rush in to find an absolute bloodbath of slaughtered civilians.

So when Marybell let out a sudden gasp, her hearing about ten times as better than anyone else's, Lee Dart and Partisan only started to run faster before she gave a small shout. "Wait!"

"What? What's going on, Bell?" Lee looked at her, eyes darting.

"Weld! It's…" Marybell swallowed nosily. "It's…"

Then Weld heard it, and didn't need to guess at what had Marybell stop short.

"It seems the mission's changed." Weld heard a creek of metal, and quickly unclenched his fists as he realized it was from him. "Blackout will still be present, we don't know if Deadwake has been taken out yet, but I want you all to wait three minutes before either aborting or continuing in."

"But…" Partisan fidgeted with his lance, before visibly shaking himself. "Understood."

"Good, you're in command, Josh." Weld broke the supposed rules for a second as he gave a soft pat on the shoulder. "Keep things steady."

And then Weld started running, down two more flights of stairs, and then out inside a building corridor. The sound of insects buzzing only increased, and it wasn't more than a second or two before Weld ran into a literal wall of the things. It was impossible to identify the kinds—there were likely hundreds of thousands just in the corridor along, all crawling over each other. It was also somewhat pointless, in many ways.

A figure seemed to melt out of the wall, covered in bugs, but that was a lie. It was a figure _made_ from them.

"Beelzebub." Weld nodded in acknowledgement, trying to stifle the fear that rose up in his gut. It was hardly the first time he'd encountered the thing, after all, who hadn't? And he was luckier than some capes, given he was mostly immune to the majority of attacks it could make, but he was hardly invincible. Better capes than him had been taken down.

"…Weld." The buzz and chatter of thousands of insects in chorus imitated human speech, not just from the figure, but all over the corridor. "Welcome to the Hancock."

It swept an 'arm', as if inviting him into its home. The wall of insects the figure had sprung from began to move through the corridor, uniformly, as if being pushed by some force, but it remained. Weld had little doubt Beelzebub was directing less than a minuscule fraction of its attention to him, even as the vague shape of a face began to take hold over the figure—large black beetles in the shape of oversized eyes, flies extending their wings in imitation of eyebrows, centipedes, spiders, and more.

Beelzebub took the form, supposedly, of a young girl given the approximate shape and height, and features of something feminine, but it was very much a lie. People argued _why_, but nobody argued that it wasn't largely a failure—the human shapes could never quite make the real jump into actually looking human, just a resemblance.

Although many people had nightmares on what if Beelzebub eventually _could_ do so.

"Are the hostages still alive?" Weld got straight to the point. While Beelzebub was known to be chatty at times, especially with capes that were somewhat invulnerable to its more conventional attacks, he was still on a short time table. "Is Deadwake?"

"Deadwake?" 'Beelzebub' tilted its head, its expression quirking, as if in thought. "Ah, yes. Him. Yes, he's still alive, in a manner of speaking. The hostages are alive as well."

Weld's stomach twisted. "What condition are the hostages in?"

"Ah." Beelzebub's caricature gave a smile. "They're unharmed, relatively."

"Would you be willing to leave?" Weld pressed his luck. He tried to appear calm, even as pressure continued to build, as if Beelzebub's very presence was squashing him. Panicking would serve no purpose. "If Deadwake isn't a problem any longer, we can handle the situation from here."

"Hm." One of its hands cupped its chin, a curious expression—overly exaggerated—shifting onto its face. "Very well, although I'll ask you to tell your downstairs companions to stop attacking me in exchange."

"For the duration of this operation." Weld pressed his luck even further.

"Right, right." Beelzebub nodded. "Today's ally, tomorrow's enemy."

And then it came apart. The insects taking the shape of a girl turned more into a cloud that drifted away, and out of sight. The corridor was absence of even a single bug in sight, and even the sound of them quickly disappeared.

Weld flicked on his radio, even as he ran towards where the hostages were supposed to be.

"This is Weld, stop all attacks on Beelzebub." He kept a steady tone, even at the mildly insane command. "I've established a ceasefire, and it's going to leave."

There was a brief, confused chatter from all over, before a fast string of acknowledgements came over the radio. It hadn't been the first time a temporary truce had been made, but it was definitely a rare occurrence.

Weld burst into the room with the hostages, quickly noting that many of them were unbound but all huddled and sobbing. There were several… remains of Teeth, mostly ruined bodies, which all of the captives were well away from.

Weld let out a short exhale—this one of pure relief. But though he started to feel the tension easing away, even as he attempted to calm down the civilians and his teammates joined back up with him, it never quite left him. There was always going to be an ever present gut wrenching feeling broiling in his body.

As insane as it was, he—and likely everyone else—had thought this mission would be something of a _vacation_ from the usual kind. Even if the mission had ended up in the worst case, with all of the civilians dead, as long as they had been able to take down the Teeth it would have still meant something. It would have been depressing, undoubtedly, but they would have been able to feel like they did something, anything. Not like every other day when they were fielded to end up doing absolutely nothing against Beelzebub.

Fighting the ocean tides.

In that regard, Weld cursed Beelzebub's 'rescue' of the civilians. Because all of that supposed relief was swept away by their very opponent. Sure, it ended up saving lives, if you didn't count the Teeth, but in the end the morale of his team was as low as ever—if not more so.

In the end, after all the clean up, everyone went home feeling arguably worse than if all the hostages had ended up being killed.

And maybe, Weld thought, that was why Beelzebub had done it. It was an Endbringer, after all.


	6. Carol

_You're an awful mother._

A small part of me whispers, before I ruthlessly squash it like a bug. It's no more than she deserves no more than how she should be treated – by everyone. But I still feel pity, despite how much I know – _I know_ – it's true, I still can't help but feel ill at ease as her expression wilts, just slightly, and for one insane moment I consider apologizing. I consider crushing her with a hug as I swear to make up for everything.

The moment passes. I see a flash, a memory, and even as I scrutinize her expression further, I can't help but notice the similarities. They're ever slight, but still present. I remember seeing him without his mask – without his _physical_ mask – and the little things stand out.

_How much does she hide under that lying little façade of hers?_

A much larger part of me hisses, and I clench my jaw and turn away before I do something I regret. I may not trust her, but there are lines I won't cross. I can't cross them lest I become just like him, a fraud of a gentleman. Many older fools who still remember him reminisce that he wasn't so bad compared today's criminals. Sure, they'd say, he had people killed – deceived, tortured, and _murdered_ – but at least he had class. He never harmed woman and children, they said – utter lies, of course – and even if he still dealt with all the usual foibles of drugs and whoring, at least he's not… well, you know. As if blatant racism, be it white supremacy or Asian supremacy, was some sort of devilry. As if the easily identified brutes were somehow better than the slimy deception of 'style'.

I shook myself, and let it go.

I let it go. I had no other choice, after all. Let the lies continue, or become some sort of a joke of a woman, a joke of a hero.

_You're still an awful mother, an awful woman, an awful girl._

It whispered again, and I squashed it just as before.

But I couldn't help the painful ache in my stomach.

Even as I walked to my car and drove to work, I still felt it.

I always feel it.

* * *

"Alan, you know we really can't excuse this kind of behavior." To be entirely honest, I was shocked. Alan Barnes never struck me as the kind of person to get into a brawl, let alone in the middle of the firm. He certainly wasn't the best type of person, but he didn't look it with his ripped collar and black eye. It looked worse than it was, but Alan only added to the image by nursing the icepack I'd given him. The other man had gotten in a number of good hits.

"Carol, I… he just…" Alan stammered for a moment, apparently at a loss, before coming back together. "It was just very personal. Believe me, it won't happen again."

In another happenstance, Alan probably would have been chomping at the bit to start a lawsuit, but with over a dozen witnesses that he was the main instigator, many of whom were coworkers that _didn't_ particularly like him, on top of security footage, he wasn't exactly on steady ground.

"What was even the problem?" I was only mildly curious. It wasn't even really my place to scold him, but I could definitely smooth things over with the partners who would doubtlessly be looking to criticize his actions. Alan's next words caught me off guard, however.

"He, uh…" Alan licked his lips. "He's the father of that one girl. The uh, the super villain, Skitter."

I froze momentarily. Everybody in Brockton Bay had heard of Skitter – or rather, Taylor Hebert. It was a particularly interesting fuck up by the PRT that nobody really expected, especially with how _bad_ it made the local heroes look, but they still had the girl in custody. I'd never had too much faith in Armsmaster, but even then I hadn't expected him to explode quite so spectacularly – at least in a public setting.

"And," I drew out the word slightly as I tried to connect things. "What exactly did he want with you?"

"He, we, uh, are—were, that is, former friends." Alan stammered again. "He wanted me to help his daughter, but I… um, I didn't…"

"I think I understand." I gave a short nod to stave off more. Normally I might have needled Alan a bit for his loss of composure, but my mind was already racing despite myself. I barely even noticed Alan beating a quick retreat out of my office.

I'd seen the girl myself, briefly, once in costume, and another out of it. Barely even a glance the second time. I didn't really know her at all, besides that my daughter hated her, but I could also read between the lines. I'd heard enough about her from others to grasp a picture – almost certainly a flawed picture, but a picture nonetheless – and I couldn't help but feel it.

Almost unconsciously, I started drafting the paperwork.

* * *

I'd actually tried going to a therapist once upon a time. It was on Sarah's suggestion, of course, and I could still remember the blowup we'd had from it, but she won that argument in the end. So I went.

I only lasted three sessions. The man had been highly educated from the degrees proudly displayed on his wall, and perhaps that should have been a sign, but I had never been particularly enthused by the thought of telling anyone, let alone a stranger, about myself anyway. I still _tried_ to explain myself, explain the insane thoughts that sometimes spilled out of me, however.

After he smugly declared he knew what was wrong with me – a persecution complex on top of other 'minor neuroses' – I left and never looked back besides to threaten him with a lawsuit just for good measure. I'd only been an intern at the time, and I would never have actually wanted my therapy sessions to be public in any manner, but seeing his expression had been worth it.

In the end, I knew I had a problem. I had known for quite some time, and I also knew what it _wasn't_, so I wasn't going to watch some drummed up fool choke from sucking on his own dick while pretending to help me. I could have gone to another, but I'd refused. I refused to bare myself like that again. Most of all, I refused to give in.

_I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul._

I shouted to myself, quoting Invictus like it had some sort of meaning to me. Even so, that conviction led to arguably what might have been the best time of my life. I built up a firm, I married Mark, and the Brigade eventually took down one of the leading criminal powers in the city near singlehandedly.

Sometimes I still look back with nostalgia to the height of the Brockton Bay Brigade's popularity. Back before Fleur died and Lightstar left. It wasn't without its downs, but the ups were wonderful. That was probably why it failed so miserably. I got caught up with our own hype, so much so that when the idea of New Wave came into being I could only love every bit of it. The lies of a superhero always bothered me – yet another layer of deceit – and what better way was there to rip away those lies than to lead by example? The practical reasons for New Wave were all well and fine, and would have been useful with my job, but peeling away that layer was always my main desire.

But I still felt it, no matter what I did. I hissed and spat curses to myself, squashing it down, but like prophecy, it all came crashing down. Everything I'd built up fell apart. Even for what I still held up, I could only wait for it too to tumble down.

"Ma'am, the prisoner's inside here." The PRT agent briskly broke me out of my musings, and I gave a short nod to him – dismissing him. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, no doubt wanting to be present for my conversation because PRT agents were never well versed in law, only interested in keeping danger elements contained, or PR. I glanced at his pips briefly even as I preempted him.

"Yes, thank you, sergeant." I shifted my posture to be less open. "I'll call you when I'm finished with my conversation with my client."

Potential client, really, and not one the firm would normally take on. This was more of my own prerogative than anything, but I doubt any of my coworkers would want to make waves by going against me.

_Why are you even doing this? She's a villain! She deserves to be thrown in jail!_

A part of me spat, angry, but not at the girl. I could feel that anger – that indignity – but it was so very small.

"Ms. Hebert?" I wasn't entirely certain of the pronunciation, but she didn't twitch or correct me as I entered the room. Sitting in one of the two chairs in the room, she glanced at me when I spoke. She didn't quite glare, but her body language radiated anger – no, not quite anger, distrust. She felt trapped, and my presence didn't assure her. For a moment, I paused as I felt disappointed, but brushed the feeling aside.

"What do you want?" Despite the clear emotions practically spilling out of her, her voice was flat.

"Ideally, I want to represent you in court." I said as I sat down opposite of her. At that, she seemed to freeze for a single, her eyes widening and then—

Nothing.

All the emotions slipped away. Nothing from her body language at all, a blank. I felt a sharp thrill shoot through my body, but quickly clamped down on the feeling.

"You're… Carol Dallon." Strangely, her voice was less flat than before. Still… blank, but not in a flat manner, merely calm. I was outright fascinated, but shook off that feeling too.

"I am." I nodded. "Since you jumped right down to the point, I won't bother with any pleasantries. You're a villain with an already bad reputation given the brutality of Lung's takedown, and how many people got injured at the Forsberg Gallery incident, and the PRT's been doing its best to vilify you as much as possible to make themselves look good."

I didn't see any shift in expression as I talked. Was it… a thinker power? The PRT had rated her as a master, but was there something more there, or just some sort of discipline?

"That said, they're doing all they can because they know they're in a bad position. Armsmaster especially is in trouble both in the media and the cape community, and if you hire me I'm fairly confident I can win a pardon and some reparations, although perhaps not without some concessions."

"Why?" She immediately asked as soon as I finished my spiel. "Why do you want to help me?"

Always to the point. I felt a smidge of comradery before I crushed that too. While I wished more people could be as direct as this girl, now wasn't the time.

"I…" I hesitated. A surge of panic threatened to overwhelm me even as I contemplated it – I could barely believe I'd even entertained the thought, I should just throw it all away—

_No._

No.

"I have a request for you." I murmured, almost too quiet to be heard, but she didn't lean closer, or ask me to speak up. She simply looked at me for a moment, scrutinizing me.

"What?" What did I want, indeed? But I couldn't say it, not here. I could barely say it within the privacy of my own head.

"Not here," I shook my head. "Not now. Later. I'll tell you what I want later, after I've won the case."

She frowned then, the first expression I'd seen on her since she'd become blank, and I felt my heart freeze.

"I don't like to leave things open like that." She shook her head. "And I don't exactly have the money to hire you, either. No deal."

She had a point, really. A blank check was dangerous, but still, I couldn't help the emotions that surged out from her blunt refusal.

"Wait!" I nearly shouted, like she was about to stand and leave—she couldn't, could she? She shouldn't be able to, but it felt like she could—and held up my hand. "You can still refuse. If you don't agree to my request when I tell it to you, after I've won the case, you can refuse."

At this, a film of confusion seemed to slide across her face, before it was once again blanked. No… _ignored_. She felt it, but put it to the side.

"That's it?" She pressed me. "You want one request, one I can refuse if I want to, and you'll win?"

"Yes, that's it." My emotions were almost crushing, but I did my best to steady them, to convince the woman across from me. "This is a personal request."

"Is it…" She paused, before slowly shaking her head. "No, I guess it doesn't matter. All right, I guess I'm sold."

It was with a hasty mixture of relief and guilt that I nearly fled the room after setting up another time to go over the details more thoroughly. The relief from her agreement was so stark in its intensity, but the guilt from feeling like I tricked her was just as strong in its own way.

_You're an awful person._

I don't even know what part of me whispered it, and no matter how many excuses I could bring up to counter it, I couldn't help but agree.

* * *

It was eventually all settled out of court, of course. It would have been quite viscerally satisfying to rake some of those idiots over the coals, but from a practical standpoint I didn't want to piss the PRT off too much. Both the case and my cape life would be placed on unsteady ground if I did. The _threat_ of a public trial, however, was not only fair game, but a useful piece in getting what I wanted.

What I wanted was very simple, but getting what my client wanted was somewhat more difficult. The PRT hated letting capes go independent, absolutely hated it, and Ms. Hebert wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Wards. In her own words, she'd rather face the Birdcage than join up with them, and didn't elaborate on it. It was only when she told me the reason why that I was able to ruthlessly throw that concession forever off the table.

In the end, after nearly four weeks of work, it was done. It was an incredibly speedy dealing, all things told, mostly because the PRT wanted to get it done and over with as fast as possible. I was able to win a pardon for Ms. Hebert's crimes, nearly half a million dollars for reparations of her revealed identity, and the best thing of all was the victory that the PRT thought they'd pulled over me. Their only concession was requiring probation of sorts for Ms. Hebert, needing a group of parahuman minders to watch over her. The PRT seemed to believe they were to be that group, but in the end they'd apparently forgotten that the Brockton Bay Brigade was technically still its own parahuman organization.

The only problem, of course, was that my client had realized from that victory what my game was. A tight, frustrated expression had filtered on to, and off of her face so quickly I barely caught it, but it had been there nonetheless. A feeling of being trapped, no doubt, and one I could sympathize with, in a way. I don't have quite the reaction she does to being cornered, despite myself.

Yes, despite myself… I sometimes reminisce about that basement. It always ends with me just frustrating myself – angering myself – but I still do so. I still feel it. Sarah likes to think I just developed Stockholm syndrome from our time in captivity, but the truth was I was _trained_ to respond to their whims. We were fed so little, but the food we were given was drugged. And for some reason, Sarah always took a lot longer to wake up. Enough that they were finished by the time she woke up.

_It didn't mean anything._

That's what part of me tells myself, but I can't help but feel it's wrong, no matter how much I try to shake it. I don't know _why_, and I'll never know why, but I eventually decided the why was unimportant. Knowing why still wouldn't change what I feel, after all. Time stretched oddly, down in that basement. I know objectively how long we were there, but to my personal time, it was an eternity. No, rather, I can't help but feel I might still be down there.

I blinked away the memories as I show Ms. Hebert—Taylor—to her room. It's somewhat bare, normally not used as much more than an extra bedroom when Sarah or her kids stayed for a night, but now it was going to be her room. Her room, I looked around it, suddenly feeling the grasp of unease begin to tighten its hold. I could feel it. I could feel the coming moment that had been building since I'd first talked to Alan – no, maybe even further back.

I'd tricked and wheedled myself here. Tricked myself, tricked my loved ones—

_Could they truly be loved ones when it's all lies?_

I had never escaped. I killed my captor, and I only felt like I'd destroyed the only thing that came my life meaning. I married Mark, had a child with him, but only did so because he could never betray me. I cared for Victoria, but only because she could never lie to me. I listened to Sarah, but only because she was there with me, she was in the dark basement too, in her own way.

_You're awful._

That small part of me whispers again, the part of me that never left that basement, that's still waiting there like a good girl because it still trusts for them to come back.

And I know it's true, even as I squash it down yet again.

_I'm my own master!_

The part of me reveled in cape business screams, lying. Painfully, painfully lying. I can trust again if I want to, it shouts, pointing to my family, and closing my eyes to the truth.

But here – _here_ – maybe there is a hope. I briefly see a look of surprise from Taylor as I kneel down, my nose buried in the carpet. I feel a surge of panic from that glimpse, but even as it thrills through my body I can already imagine the emotion sliding off her face. The emotion, ignored. Unimportant. So that when she speaks…

"What do you want?" She speaks with an utter calm, an absolute control. I feel another surge of emotion, far more heady.

"Please," I nearly choked, forcing the words out. "I'm awful. Please… punish me."

And she pulls it out of me. Even as she asks – _commands_ – me to explain why I need to be punished, I can feel it. She pulls it all out of me, disjointed, starting first with only my cruel deeds, to my trickery, but soon to others, to Marquis, and eventually, ever so slowly, to that basement. I never look up. Even as my body begins to throb from my position, I never waver in pressing myself to the floor.

And then my confession is done. I feel no sense of unburdening, no alleviation of loathing – I just wait, emotions trembling my body.

She says nothing for a time; I can't even begin to guess how long. It stretched, however long it was, into the longest moment of my life. And then, finally, she passed judgment.

And I wept. My tears dripped into the carpet as I felt wave after wave of pure and utter _relief_.

_Finally._

I whispered to myself, I didn't have to feel it anymore. I didn't have to be _lost_ anymore. I didn't have to hate or love that basement anymore. I could stay there, or leave it, if the leash around my neck led me that way.

_I don't have to be awful anymore._

My quiet cries of gratitude were interrupted by her bare foot pressing down on the back of my head. My nose, already buried in the carpet, throbbed painfully from the extra pressure.

And she commands me. Laying down rules—laws—that I have so desperately yearned for.

It's dark. There's no lighting in the room as I memorize everything she says, burn the words into my mind, and I don't feel the ache. I'm finally home.


	7. Beauty

It came off with a wet, slopping noise. It reminded her dimly of the slimy pop of dentures being removed, only far more magnified—visceral. Even more dimly, she wondered if she was in shock.

It would be natural to be shocked if you just pulled off a chunk of your own face, wouldn't it?

It was a large section of her cheek, in fact. Her left cheek, from just below her eyelid to the very edge of her jaw. She saw saliva dribble out of the gaping hole, and some of her exposed muscles tense and work as her expression shifted slightly.

But there wasn't any blood. There wasn't any emotion. There wasn't anything but a stark, calmness in the wake of her 'facial lift', as it were.

_I'm joking about this?_ The thought slid through her mind naturally, unbidden, even.

_No, wait a second_, she realized. It wasn't completely blank. The itch—the ache—that had been bothering her all day, that had caused her to look in her mirror and scratch and pull and rip and eventually just tear off part of her own face was finally gone. Fulfilled, even, like a scratching at a bug bite.

It felt good, just a little bit, and made her feel a little bit relieved. Like she'd finally satisfied some instinctual need, or something.

But like a bug bite, she was starting to feel more of the ache, this time on the other side of her jaw.

And without much thought, she started to pull at that skin. It was easy—effortless, even—to dig in and pull off the skin and fat, and whatever else was in her cheeks with another wet slop. More saliva dribbled out, and she tried—and failed—to make several expressions. The muscles to pull everything weren't quite present anymore. So she blinked curiously, still feeling no shock or panic. She didn't even feel any disgust or nausea despite experiences with slasher films she'd been suckered into watching nearly making her puke at times.

Then her nose started to ache.

_Oh to hell with it_, she shrugged, and just started tearing everywhere that felt 'right', or didn't hurt when she scratched at it. Her nose nearly popped off with another wet noise—and she saw it leave a trail of some yellow fluid for a short distance before it snapped—and she was surprised at how easy it was to breathe without it, like she'd been covering herself with a facemask for who knows how long and could finally just suck in some unfiltered air.

She only poked at her eye once before withholding a yelp at the stinging sensation. Likewise she didn't try yanking at her hair more than once. The skin peeled away from it just fine, leaving oddly colored gunk behind for it to cling to, and the rest of her face peeled away easily enough, but her eyes and hair stayed.

Then she pulled off her clothes and started scratch away the rest of her body. It took an oddly short amount of time as she really began to work at it—large sections of flesh practically just fell off once she gave a few good yanks, and she'd already figured her nails were going to stay. It wasn't long before she'd peeled off the last bit of flesh off the sole of her right foot and chucked it on to the large pile of discarded flesh.

"Weird," she said, and then immediately wondered how on earth she'd been able to articulate the sound without her mouth. Sure, she still had her tongue, and an annoyingly large amount of saliva, but beyond that—and her eyes and hair—her face was almost skeletal. Or, at least, something like an anatomic dummy, given that she still had large sections of muscles still attached.

The rest of her body was similar. Exposed bones covered in muscle tissue and… fat, or whatever—she didn't remember half of what the gunk was. Her organs were exposed, but somehow held in place. She could _see_ her lungs expanding with every breath—see her heart pulse every second in a slow, steady pace. It didn't really make sense, but she couldn't help but marvel, just a little bit.

_It's beautiful_, she couldn't help but think, despite the fact that she also knew that she really shouldn't feel that way. She could remember averting her eyes in biology learning about the human anatomy, feeling light headed. It wasn't exactly like she was squeamish about blood, but she knew she never thought of anything like an half skeletal body was anything near _pretty_.

"Oh, wow," she said out loud as realization abruptly struck. "I'm a parahuman."

Then she heard the front door open and close, and the sense of wonder disappeared. She glanced at her current state, and finally felt a sense of panic. Not from what she looked like, but what might happen if she were discovered as she was. Nearly all of her unique physical features had been torn away, now littering the bathroom floor. If someone were to see her…

Her saliva had finally seemed to have stopped dripping out now that she'd finally completed her shedding, or whatever it was, and she palmed her face as a sick feeling entered her stomach—and then immediately stopped. The sensation of scrapping her bones against one another was not necessarily painful, but quite uncomfortable. It also amused her, dimly, to see that her stomach did actually gurgle from her emotions, no doubt discharging acid—which was sort of an unpleasant thought in some ways but…

_No. No, just calm down_, she thought to herself. _If you're a parahuman, then there should be _something_ you can do about this._

Parahumans had powers or something… something that would be more than just shedding skin and be able to live without it. Right? Right.

She suddenly felt another ache, almost as if in response to that thought, but this time it wasn't anywhere on her body. It was, at that point, the oddest sensation she'd experienced that day. Like a numb limb that was beginning to wake up, only the limb wasn't attached to her body.

It was on the floor. All over the floor, in fact.

She glanced at her discarded skin, cartilage, and whatever else she'd peeled off, and actually _felt_ through them.

And then she used her half-numb limb and _pulled_.

It was, strangely, soundless as all of her flesh nearly leapt back onto her body. From looking at herself in the mirror, it was like some bizarre rewind of a video tape as her discards joined back together seamlessly.

But it wasn't exactly seamless, she felt. A frown slowly crept onto her expression as she looked at herself in the reflection. She felt… loose, and at the same time, constricted.

_I don't feel comfortable in my own skin anymore_, she realized with a giggle. The old expression she'd heard was never more apt.

She swept a finger across her face, and didn't feel anything wrong with it. Her mouth was a little dry, but beyond that everything seemed to be in order.

_I'm a parahuman_, she thought, still slightly in awe. _I wonder what I should do?_

She felt like she should have jumped at a sudden knock at the bathroom door, but she didn't. She only felt that strange calm again. It was her dad, wondering if she was there.

"Sorry, dad. I heard you come in, but I was, uh…" She reached for an excuse, but her dad quickly laughed and cut her off—a tinge of nervousness in his voice saying he didn't actually want to know—he just wanted to ask if she had any preference for dinner.

"I'm okay with whatever," she said. "Maybe lasagna?"

_Still_, she wondered as she pulled her clothes back on and left the bathroom, _what _should_ I do now…?_

* * *

Sophia froze.

No matter what she might tell anyone later, she still froze in shock when she saw it.

It.

It, because she couldn't identify its gender.

It, because despite all the brutality she'd seen as a cape, she had never anything like it. She'd seen corpses, of course, but never one without any of its skin.

"Fuck," she whispered out loud, and the word seemed to reboot her brain. A thrill surged through her as adrenaline pumped. Her eyes darted everywhere, looking for anybody still around—and then she immediately slapped a hand over Emma's mouth as she started to scream.

"Quiet!" Sophia didn't full focus on her companion, still looking around for a few moments to see if anybody else was around. It was after school, and normally they'd have both left, but they'd seen Hebert sticking around and decided to have a little bit of fun.

"Sophia, th-this is… th-that's…!" Sophia resisted the urge to roll her eyes as Emma pulled the hand off her mouth and started gesturing and spluttering nonsensically. She was a survivor, sure, but she still had a ways to go before she could clamp down on her urge to panic when something unexpected happened.

_Well, it's not like I can blame her_, Sophia thought as she flipped open her cell phone and hit a speed dial. _Not like she gets much practice for it._

While she was fairly certain she was alone, she quickly rung off a bit of code to the PRT agent on the other end rather than risk it. While Sophia would have dearly loved to give whatever the fuck had happened at her school the personal touch, a weird murder was just a tad too big to keep under wraps, and she just _knew_ Piggy was looking for anything to string her up on, like not immediately reporting in for something like a parahuman attack.

_Well, it might not be a parahuman_, Sophia admitted to herself, _but the body's a bit too… hm, what was that word?_

Sophia paused, tapping her shoulder with a finger for a moment or two before it came to her. _Right, grotesque. It's a bit too grotesque to be something mundane._

Now finally getting back into her groove, Sophia pulled Emma away from the corpse to help her finally calm down and get their stories straight. She wasn't going—or rather, knew she _couldn't_—actually lie about anything, but she could easily just… omit certain details. Awkward details like why exactly they were even snooping around for Hebert. Hopefully they could avoid giving her name out at all, but Sophia doubted it'd matter too much if it was let loose. A loser like Taylor Hebert would never have to guts to try and sidetrack a murder investigation with whines about her school life.

* * *

"Walk me through it, Shadow Stalker." Sophia couldn't help the grin behind her mask at the brusque command. Sure, it chafed being under someone, especially someone as goddamn uptight as Armsmaster, but her day was looking up if she could actually be part of the murder investigation.

"I already gave the basics," Sophia said with a shrug, trying to keep the excitement surging in her out of her voice. "I couldn't actually examine the body as a civilian. The only other thing I can really tell you is that I saw the guy around school. Hell, he was in my last class of the day."

Guy, yeah. Jonathon Willis was his name. Sophia had actually found the guy pretty hot, which was why she knew him at all, and she'd been pretty stunned that Armsmaster had just pointed some sort of scanner at the corpse and it spat out some information on him. Apparently the Protectorate could pull dental files easy, who knew?

"Your last class was when?" Armsmaster pressed, his visible mouth still firmly pressed into a frown.

"About an hour ago, uh," Sophia paused to glance at a nearby clock. "Yeah, just around three."

_Did this guy even go to high school?_ She wondered briefly, before shrugging it off. Maybe he was just being anal about getting all the details down.

"And you found the body approximately twenty minutes afterward?" Armsmaster pressed again.

_God, had it already been forty minutes?_ Sophia resisted the urge to shake her head. Time had just flown by with the rush of PRT and police officers. In a way it had felt pretty boring, but as the panic had faded, a sort of excitement had started to build in her body as she saw how fast the officers and PRT agents had been getting things done. She and Emma had given their statements and they were 'sent off' lightning quick as the arguments about whose jurisdiction it was filtered around the area from the officials. It was a hunt, and one she dearly wanted to get in on in some fashion.

"Yeah, about." Sophia nodded. "I can't give you an exact time, mind, but it wasn't more than fifteen, twenty minutes at most."

Armsmaster gave a short exhaling, and a nod, tapping his helmet with his finger.

"Why? You tracking the killer by the how long the body's been cooling?" Sophia prodded to try and pull some information out of him.

"Yes, and no." Armsmaster looked at her sharply. "I just double-checked to make sure, but I am certain that this boy has been dead more than five hours."

"I, uh…" Sophia felt a chill creep through her excitement and crawl down her spine, her next words tumbling out with a nervous tinge. "But I saw him in class."

"Yes, and the boy's mother reported that he came home when we called." Armsmaster paused, his lips compressing into a white line. "Upon further investigation, Velocity reported that the boy was nowhere to be found, only…"

Sophia resisted the urge to egg her superior on. The fact that he was even pausing so much meant he was just as unbalanced as she felt—she knew he was absolutely hopeless with any sort of dramatics. Too much of a tightwad.

"The only thing Velocity found was a pile of skin. He's bringing it in for analysis, but giving the state of the body here, I have little doubt it'll be a match."

"Holy fuck," Sophia breathed. "You mean the killer was literally walking around in his skin?"

"Yes," Armsmaster said, and walked away without another word. That was something Sophia didn't mind too much about him, he never bothered with any niceties shit. When he was finished with a conversation and he wasn't with someone he was trying to get an angle on, he just fucked off without a care.

That didn't beat back the crawling sensation going up and down her spine, however. The fact that some sick fuck had been walking around in some guy's skin without her being any the wiser just… pissed her off.

Even so, she couldn't quite shake it. An unease that cut through the buzz of anger and the thrill of a hunt as she thought more and more about the boy she'd thought was Jonathon Willis that day. As a guy with a hot bod, she hadn't really paid too much attention to anything other than his ass, or the abs that peeked out a bit with his short shirt, but she also hadn't noticed anything _off_ either. He still hung out with the same friends, and he still seemed pretty much the same as any other day…

Which implied, at least a little, that his killer either knew him pretty well, or the parahuman—and it was sure as fuck a parahuman—had some power to _at least_ copy mannerisms, if not even memories.

Which meant, possibly, they could be anyone.

Anyone.

"Fuck," Sophia swore as she suppressed a shiver, thoroughly crept out. _I'm going to have to watch my fucking back._

* * *

As the week progressed, and then slipped into a fortnight and further, Sophia tried—and failed—to clamp down on the burning sensation in her gut. The sheer… agitation she was feeling made her want to start screaming. In the beginning, she'd just felt a tight sense of wariness. She hadn't ever really felt 'safe' in Winslow, to be sure, but that wasn't a bad thing. She was comfortable in the school, it was a jungle of sorts, and she was well within her element in it. And why shouldn't she be? She was the most dangerous thing in it. Gang members? Please. She'd torn through tougher bastards than the children playing dress up to beg for scraps, and on their own turf.

That comfort of being in her element, of being queen of the jungle as it were, had quickly been eroded. The initial paranoia had transformed into a seething anger. Not necessarily at the killer—although she was certainly pissed at him—but at her environment, her… situation. The constraints placed on her as a Ward had never felt so tight, so goddamn choking. There was a killer in the school. She knew—fucking _knew_—that whoever had killed Jonathon was still around. Her instincts all but screamed it at her, but nobody seemed to be interested. No parahumans had popped up with any related abilities to the murder, and as all the leads apparently came up empty, Armsmaster had shifted control of his so-called investigation over the regular PRT grunts—he had better things to do, obviously, the douchebag. Like failing to actually grab any criminals.

Sophia shook her head, waving off her anger at her 'superior'. She hardly respected the man, but she understood his reasons for moving on to other things. What was most frustrating, the most fucking aggravating thing about the entire thing is how they just turned up their noses at her suggestions. She was _right there_, at ground zero of the goddamn murder. She knew the place better than anyone, and not only had they ignored her, they'd outright forbidden her to investigate.

And now, at the end of week four of the murder, she'd heard talk of even the grunts just shrugging it off and beginning to set it down as a cold case. Whoever had done it had 'obviously' skipped town,

_Fucking morons_, Sophia thought with a gnash of her teeth.

"Sophia, what are we doing?" Emma whispered, forcing Sophia out of her thoughts and making her roll her eyes.

"You don't need to whisper," Sophia said with a sigh. "Nobody gives a damn about us walking in here. They cleared everything of evidence, and all the other students have given this place the once over."

"Then… why are we here now?" Emma looked totally out of her element—which, Sophia supposed, was fair, since she pretty much was.

"'cause I never got a good look afterward myself. Damned assholes were always more interested in busting me down than actually fucking investigating." That was pretty galling too, but she'd taken solace in the fact that she was the first one on the scene. Her memory wasn't exactly perfect, but she could still remember the important details—how the body was positioned, how most of the chairs and desks of the classroom had been shifted, and such.

"Won't you… get in trouble?" Emma asked after a moment, looking like she'd shaken off whatever funk that gotten her timid away.

"Nobody's going to know. As long as I don't go around all dressed up, who's going to care about ol' Sophia Hess, right?" Sophia shot her companion a grin, who gave a conspiratory return smile.

"So, what are we looking for, then?" Emma prompted with a look around the classroom. It was sparsely occupied by school furniture, given that it was mostly unused. Some faulty electric work discovered a year ago had resulted in the room being ignored as opposed to getting a repairman to fix it.

"Nothing too much," Sophia said with a shrug. "I only wanted to get into the right mindset. You know that thing where you try and see from the criminal's perspective."

"Right." Emma gave a nod. "But what're you going to do? Like, question who was last seen talking to him or something?"

"Nah," Sophia said, slipping down into an empty desk seat. "I'm sure the previous investigation did that to death. Might have even asked a question or two that could have helped me, but I'll just have to go at it on my own.

"I have an edge though," Sophia said with another, sharper, grin.

"And what's that, hero?" Emma sat down in another seat.

"I know people, I know this place. And Armsmaster?" Sophia shook her head. "He doesn't. He doesn't get people, doesn't get _it_. He might try, but his fumbling on trying to understand people is more pathetic than anything.

"So, the thing I can do? I get to ask the question of _why_," Sophia said as she felt a smug look settle onto her face. "Armsmaster would have been able to ask the same question right up until he questioned people on whether or not the victim had any enemies, or recent confrontations. When he got a 'no', he'd have looked for other fish in the sea."

"Wait, why what?" Emma frowned as she tried to follow.

"Why'd someone kill him," Sophia glared at Emma, exasperated. "Someone doesn't just off a guy, _skin him_, and then go walk around in their flesh for shits and giggles, and then just stop for no reason. There's more here, my gut instinct's screaming it at me, and that's something that Armsmaster would never get."

"Okay, so what, then?" Emma glanced around the room again. The screwed electric work meant the lights didn't work, but the sun was still shining through the windows to keep it bright enough to see pretty much everything.

"Well, just think," Sophia started, just as much working it through her mind as she was speaking. "Jonathon was a nobody. He did football, enough to be pretty fit, but he wasn't that great at it, and he didn't do much of anything else. Who's going to even care about him?"

"So, basically, he was targeted because he wasn't important?" Emma said questioningly, trying to put it together. "But then why—"

"Why not someone even less important? Someone probably wouldn't even notice disappearing?" Sophia shook her head. "See, that's the thing. The killer took his place. I don't think that corpse was meant to be found, or…"

Sophia snapped her fingers as a thought came to mind. It didn't necessarily follow her previous train of thought, but it felt right.

"The kill might have been an accident." Sophia curved the thought around, and found herself liking it more and more as she focused on it.

"A-an accident!?" Emma looked shocked, and it took Sophia a second to remember that the other girl wasn't as familiar with capes as she was.

"It's not really all that surprising. Not all capes know exactly how their powers work until they try them out, and if our killer was doing just that, only to find out it was a pretty lethal ability, well…" Sophia shrugged. "Then he just tried out their new Jonathon skin suit. Hell, he was probably even planning on coming back to get rid of the body later in the night, but we found it too fast."

"Okay," Emma said, drawing out the word. "So if that's the why, then how is that going to help you find him?"

"Easy," Sophia started to say, but paused. "Well, not really easy, more like… what's the word? A cause and an effect?"

"Wait, causality?" Emma frowned. "I don't think that means what you're thinking?"

"Huh, really?" Sophia fumbled mentally for a second. "I mean, it's like… when I can see how and why something happens, I can trace it back. Like, I'm hunting this loser drug dealer to find a bigger catch, and he moves around to avoid the cops, but he only moves around so much, you know? I can't follow him directly since he's a paranoid fuck, but I can look at where he shows up to see some patterns of where he might be."

"I think… that's more like correlation?" Emma's frown deepened in confusion.

"Huh, well, whatever." Sophia shook it off. "Doesn't matter. The point is I—"

She froze as there was a faint squeak of shoes from the hallway, and immediately jumped up from her seat to check, only dimly aware of Emma springing up beside her as her vision tunneled. The door banged up as she skidded out into the hall and caught a glimpse of who was spying on them. It was a girl, and she got a good look at her face before she dashed around the corner. The problem was…

_Who that fuck was that?_ Sophia wondered furiously, not really recognizing fleeing girl, while at the same time reviewing what she'd been telling Emma. She was generally more careful with her words, knowing that most anyone could be listening, but she'd been a bit too casual about some information that wasn't publicly known.

"Who was that?" Sophia growled out, not really expecting an answer.

"I think… it was Julia?" Emma decided to surprise her, however.

"Wow, you could tell just from a look?" Sophia gave a chuckle, despite feeling pissed. "Not bad."

_Shit. I could get in a lot of trouble if that bitch blabs to anyone._ Sophia gritted her teeth painfully. She'd generally barely paid any attention to their hanger-ons, but she knew most of them were just stupid little suck ups. They were useful in some cases, but not anyone to trust.

_Still, I didn't actually say anything incriminating._ Sophia tried to calm herself down at the thought. She'd certainly implied some shit she wouldn't want anyone else to know, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

"You got her phone number?" Sophia paused, and then reconsidered. "No, wait, never mind that. I'd better just corner her tomorrow."

"You sure?" Emma frowned. "What if she says something?"

"She should already know better than to piss me off. She ran off, remember?" Sophia shrugged. "She might think of something stupid later, but I'll just pressure her a bit tomorrow to make sure she keeps her mouth shut.

"I'll do it right after classes are over if I can't find her at lunch, and then we can continue our little project then." Sophia shot Emma another grin, feeling her temper starting to subside.

"Whatever you say, hero." Emma returned the smile.

* * *

Like she'd almost prophesied the previous day, Julia was nowhere to be seen during lunchtime. The stranger thing was she'd missed several of her classes—not all of them, so Sophia knew she _was_ at school, but enough that it had been harder to keep track of her. Thankfully, she had someone competent at her back.

[sum1 saw juli a bio]

_Ah, Emma, always on the ball._ Sophia felt a grin coming on as she flipped her phone closed after a quick thank you text. The biology labs were in probably one of the more run down areas of the school, which was pretty much perfect for a little intimidation.

Her grin slipped off her face when she came close to labs and saw a familiar figure crouched near a doorway.

"Hebert?" The name slipped out of her lips almost involuntarily, causing the other girl to whip around and look at her with surprise. Her favorite little punching bag hadn't gotten much use in the past month thanks to all the attention the PRT had been giving the school, but she could practically recognize her hunched posture anywhere.

"Sophia!?" Hebert gave a gasp. Whatever response Sophia might have given was interrupted by a sharp bang and rattle of metal falling on the floor in the room Hebert had been trying to spy on.

_Julia, definitely Julia._ Sophia decided, and rather than potentially let her get away like yesterday, she quickly pushed her way past Hebert into the room.

"Julia!" Sophia felt her smile come back on as she saw her target fumbling with a metal bowl and a bunch of gunk on the floor. "Just who I was looking for."

"S-Sophia, hey… uh…" Julia blinked, and stood slowly, leaving her things on the floor. "Hey."

Sophia paused for a second, looking at the other girl. She felt off balance suddenly. Julia sounded nervous—and she should be, really—but it still felt… odd.

_Something is seriously off._ Sophia frowned. The weirdest thing was she couldn't exactly tell _what _was off. It was almost like it was, what, fake?

_No, _Sophia decided. _Not fake, she's definitely nervous, just off. Not nervous… because of me?_

But she was, definitely. The uneasy feeling didn't stop though, and Sophia began to get angry. _What the fuck, why am I being so chicken shit?_

When Sophia finally started to advance on the other girl, she felt the realization wash over her. It didn't cut through her anger, but it did allow her to suddenly focus on the oddity.

_She's nervous because of me, but she's not _afraid_ of me._ Sophia narrowed her eyes. Julia wasn't feeling intimidated by her presence, wasn't afraid of getting hurt. She was… what? What was she doing?

Sophia glanced at the gunk on the floor and mess of bottles and objects on the table, but immediately dismissed them. She had no idea what any of it was, so it was better to just get information straight out of the mystery itself.

"So, Julia," Sophia began with a toothy smile. "I saw you running away from me yesterday. What got you so in a hurry?"

"N-nothing," Julia mumbled. Her eyes flicked to the mess around the room, but didn't necessarily shy away from Sophia's glare. "I just… had to get home."

"Uh huh," Sophia gave a short murmur, her eyes narrowing. "And what're you doing right now, exactly?"

"Nothing, just." Julia paused oddly. Less like she was reaching for an excuse, and more like she just… froze. A sudden stop instead of a stutter or drawing out of word. "Homework."

"Uh huh…" Sophia felt her anger beginning to boil. She still had no idea what was going on, and it was not making her happy. "Why don't you stop lying, you stupid bitch?"

Sophia saw Julia start to grab at something on the table and intercepted her hand partway. The other girl gave something of a gasp at the touch, but it sounded off. It wasn't surprise, no it was… pleased?

Sophia quickly pushed aside the confusion she felt at Julia's even stranger reaction and squeezed the other girl's wrist painful. Partly to try and incite something out of Julia, but mostly because she really just wanted to finally vent on someone, and getting a prissy little bitch like Julia to start moaning in pain didn't seem too bad.

_Wait, what?_ Sophia felt her jaw drop. Julia's wrist didn't act like normal. There was resistance, of course, but instead of reaching a sort of compacting, when all the flesh and muscles ground together, it just… gave way.

"…the fuck?" Sophia breathed out as she looked at Julia's crushed wrist. It felt like… like some sort of dough.

Then Sophia saw stars.

One second she was on her feet looking at Julia, the next she was on the floor and—

_Fuck, fuck, fuck!_ Sophia finally began to struggle, the hands around her throat were felt like a vise, and she was already starting to see black at the edges of her vision. Her fingers dug into Julia's wrists to try to get some sort of grip and pull them away, but it was like pulling on rubber. They bent and deformed, but they weren't loosening, and—

_Powers, my powers, I just_—

There was a meaty thump, and Sophia gave a gasp—a deep, choking, coughing gasp—as she finally felt sweet air being pulled into her lungs again. Her vision went dark along with something heavy falling on her. On instinct rather than conscious action, she tried to roll away, and managed to slam her back against the side of a desk, half prepared to shadow through it before she actually saw that she wasn't about to get attacked.

"H—" Sophia choked again, another cough interrupting her. "Hebert?"

The dark eyes behind the same dorky glasses glared down at her, and Sophia blinked a few more times to actually bring the full picture into focus as Hebert set the fire extinguisher in her hands on one of the tables.

"You okay?" The question was filled with a lot of emotion, not things Sophia could easily identify, making it come out thick.

"Fuck, no," Sophia coughed again. "Where is that psycho bitch?"

Hebert pointed to a pile of clothes on the floor—no.

"What the fuck!" Sophia's shout came out hoarse as she looked at the pile of _skin_ on the floor. Julia, it was Julia. Sophia could see vague, distorted features of the girl that had just tried to kill her, but everything was off, deformed. Seeing her like she was some sort of discarded body suit unsettled Sophia more than she would have liked to admit even to herself.

_Julia was the killer?_ Sophia shook off the thought, her mind racing. _No, she was another victim. But then, where was her body? Unless… it had already been disposed of, of course. That means…_

"What are you doing?" Hebert's question broke Sophia out of her thoughts, and she realized she'd been reaching towards Julia's skin.

"Nothing! I just…" Sophia felt herself stumble, completely thrown off her game at the question because she wasn't even sure what she'd been planning on doing by touching what was left of the girl. It wasn't like she'd ever cared about her at all, but it was more jarring than she thought to see the… _discards_ of someone she'd known. The dead bodies she'd seen, even the skinned corpse of Jonathon, had been different. They were just dead, but this was… more.

_Fuck, what am I doing?_ Sophia shook her head, trying to throw off the odd… melancholic sensation. _Shit, why the hell does Hebert seems so damn unfazed?_

Sophia narrowed her eyes as she finally stood up, looking at the other girl. Before she'd entered the room to confront Julia—or what she _thought_ was Julia—Hebert had been skittish. Even now, there was plenty of emotion on her face, but none of it was fear or nervousness. Now, she looked almost calm. It was… pretty fucking unnatural.

_Is Hebert involved in this?_ Sophia wondered, and felt a tight sense of wariness finally overwhelm the vulnerability she'd been trying to shake. A part of her wanted to scoff at the notion of a weakling like Hebert being more than a walking lunch for real predators out there, but it was hard to dismiss it from where she was standing right now.

"What were you doing here?" Sophia asked with her voice still feeling rough.

Hebert paused for a moment, her expression tightening as she looked Sophia, almost searching for something, before she finally gave a shrug and a sigh.

"I… was following Julia." Hebert said, licking her lips as she finally glanced away.

"Why?" Sophia prompted when it didn't look like Hebert was going to continue.

"She was acting weird." Hebert gave another shrug.

"Weird _how?_" Sophia only barely held back a growl, remembering again why she hated the other girl. Even in answering her questions, so just gave off this air of… timidness that made Sophia want to punch her.

"She was kind of jittery, I guess?" Hebert frowned, and shook her head. "No… I think what made me follow her was how she was acting all clingy to Sparky."

"To _Sparky_?" Sophia was barely able to control her expression. While she generally ignored idiots like Sparky, she at least knew _of_ him given how much Emma and Madison vented whenever they'd ended up stuck with him as a project partner.

"Yes, that's… why it was weird." Hebert shrugged again. "I don't know, I don't have any real reason beyond that."

Sophia blinked for a second, feeling an odd sensation at the other girl's words, before she shook it off. She needed to focus.

"Okay, good, hm." Sophia tried to organize her thoughts.

"What were you doing looking for Julia?" Which Hebert immediately interrupted.

"None of your business," Sophia snapped back.

"Hey, fuck you." The curse, and the real heat behind it, actually took Sophia by surprise as she looked up at Hebert's stormy expression.

"Neither of us like each other, hell, I didn't like Julia either, but this is serious, and I answered your questions, didn't I?" Hebert's jaw clenched for a second as she glared at Sophia. "At the very fucking least, you could return the favor."

Sophia pursed her lips as she thought about it. Sure, it felt almost like she'd be backing down, but on the other hand…

"Yesterday she overheard me talking about the killing last month, and acted really weird." Sophia gave a shrug. "I was only able to find her today, and… heh, well, you saw what happened."

The tension that had started to build in Hebert's body seemed to slowly evaporate as Sophia explained, and she found herself strangely disappointed, almost regretting letting the information loose. Hell, it was like—

Sophia felt her legs get pulled out from under her.

"Fuck!" If she hadn't already been pretty suspicious of Hebert, she'd have been taken totally off guard. As it was, Sophia was only able to control her fall so she didn't bash her head against the nearby tables, and roll away from where she felt her legs get grabbed. She dimly heard Hebert give a similar curse as she threw her head from side to side to try and grab a view of whatever had attacked her.

_Shit, shit, shit!_ Sophia continued to curse in her mind as saw a brief glimpse of it. A glance at where Julia's skin pile used to be confirmed that it was indeed gone.

"What the fuck, Hebert!" Sophia shouted as she pulled herself into a crouch, trying to see where the thing was going to attack from. "I thought you killed it!"

"I bashed its head in, Sophia!" Hebert practically growled back. "It collapsed, I thought it was dead. _You _thought it was dead!"

"Shit," Sophia cursed again, but it lacked any heat as she tried to focus. _Where the hell is it…_

It was a frantic couple of minutes as both Sophia and Hebert first tried to defend against concealed attacker, and then tried to actually _find_ the damn thing before they were able to conclude that it had really just run away.

"Okay, so," Hebert began while she wiped at her brow with a sleeve. "You've got a cell phone, right? Do you know the PRT's number?"

Sophia paused in her last few futile attempts at seeing if the thing was _actually_ still just hiding in some desk compartment and waiting to spring on her yet a-fucking-gain, or really, seriously gone. She drew in a tight breath, and clenched her jaw.

"We're not calling the PRT, Hebert." Sophia told the other girl, her voice clear as she'd finally recovered from her choking.

"What!?" Hebert looked at her like she was crazy. "That thing had to be some sort of, I dunno, a master controlled puppet or something. God, if Julia was like that and nobody knows, there could be more people like her!"

"Yeah, and what exactly is the PRT going to do about it?" Sophia could feel her heartbeat pulsing in her ears. She wanted this. She wanted to do this, and she had a feeling… Hebert wanted it too, even if she didn't realize it.

"Their job?" Sophia clenched her jaw at the sarcasm in Hebert's tone.

"If you weren't aware, 'their job' of the last month consisted of looking like they were doing something while in reality just sitting on their fat asses." Sophia jerked her arm angrily as she thought about Piggot's beady eyes and satisfied expression as she told Sophia that she'd be thrown into juvie if she tried to interfere with the investigation. "I heard those PRT idiots laughing this thing off as a cold case just because they couldn't be fucked to do some more work."

"Maybe…" Hebert shrugged uneasily. "But that was before what happened with Julia."

"Before what with Julia?" Sophia swept her arms around the room. "She's gone, and I can bet you she's not going to pop up again. What exactly do we have to tell them that wouldn't be laughed off as a couple of kids doing drugs?"

"That's…" Hebert actually looked shaken now, she swallowed nervously before continuing. "They're the PRT, they're good guys, and even if Julia never shows up again, that would just corroborate us."

"Or maybe it would just be yet another troubled kid disappearing in a school with a major gang problem. Those sure don't happen much, right?" Sophia carefully kept a smug grin off her face as she saw Hebert clench her jaw at the returned sarcasm. "And then, after being laughed off, they'd be even less likely to listen to us when we had some actual evidence."

"Actual…?" Hebert's eyes widened. "You mean you want to…?"

"Come on, Hebert." Sophia let the grin she'd been holding off finally slip on to her face. "Are you telling me you want to leave it to someone else?

"Are you _seriously_ telling me that when you snuck up behind whatever the fuck killed Julia and was using her skin like a toy, you didn't feel the thrill? The PRT, hell, the _Protectorate_ just doesn't have what it takes, Hebert." Sophia let out a laugh. "You said you followed Julia because she was clinging to Sparky, but that could have been anything. There was no reason for you to follow someone that's been nothing but a bitch to you for years just because of that. You knew something else was going on, you fucking _knew_ it, and you wanted to find out what. Tell me I'm wrong."

"I just…" Hebert mouthed silently for a second, and then closed her mouth with a click.

And Sophia knew she had her.

"You want to know what? I fucking knew it too. I knew it from the second I saw the first victim's corpse, I could just feel that something was going crazy in this school, and I wanted to find out what, but then I made a mistake, Hebert." Sophia tapped her phone. "I called the PRT."

"You were the one who found him?" Hebert blinked. Sophia stopped for a second, before remembering that was only really common knowledge in her circle.

"Yeah, that's right. I found him, and the first thing I did was call the PRT, but guess what?" Sophia gestured her arms open. "They did fuck all. I actually talked with Armsmaster, and he let slip some pretty freaky shit, like the fact that the killer had been walking around in the victim's skin practically the whole school day. He was able to find out that much, but he never fucking did anything with it. He gave it up after a week, and left it to some random goons. He just didn't _get it_, Hebert."

"And you do?" Hebert's voice was perfectly blank, but Sophia didn't need to gauge her anymore.

"Yeah, I do." Sophia stretched out her hand. "And so do you."

Hebert looked at her hand like a viper, but she kept it up in the air, wordlessly expressing her desire. In a way, even that small gesture galled her a bit, the little part of her that still saw Hebert as that stupid little kid in the yellow sundress that she just wanted to push down into the muck for being so aggravatingly _weak_.

But it was just so small compared to the thrill that was surging through her. The huge part of her, the hunter part of her, that could _see_ how this wasn't that same girl. Somewhere along the lines, she'd been changed. Maybe it wasn't even their bullying that did it; maybe she'd been thrown into some real fire and come out better for it. It didn't matter.

They shook hands.

She didn't like Hebert, and Hebert didn't like her, but that was good. The very fact that they hated each other meant they'd be watching each other as much as they were everyone else.

_It's perfect,_ Sophia thought as her grin widened. _It's like… gah, what's the word?_

"Hey, Hebert," Sophia looked at her the other girl as she continued to wrack her brain. "What's the word when two different types of animals work together, and both get something out of it?"

"Huh?" Hebert frowned in confusion. "Do you mean like… symbiosis?"

"That's it!" Sophia tapped her forefinger to her nose, and pointed at Hebert in acknowledgement. "You and me, Hebert. We've got a great symbiosis going on."

"…You're crazy, Sophia." Hebert shook her head, and started to look over the mess the Julia puppet had been making.

And Sophia laughed.


	8. Coiled

_"I won't have it said that I'm not a man of my word."_

There was a particularly ironic sort of torture with it all. The very last thing I expected was for Coil to actually go along with his deal. Yeah, I'd hoped for it in many ways, but I'd never really expected it when you get right down to it. Lisa said it'd never happen, and from all I knew about Coil—no, I suppose I should say Director Calvert—he wasn't exactly one to just let his resources go, no matter what kind of bargain was struck.

Life always threw curveballs at me, I swear.

But I was still on edge. I kept watch over Dinah, and the men Coil had observing her through her detox. I talked with Lisa, who was even more stupefied than me. I waited for the other shoe to drop.

And waited, and waited, and waited. Days turned to weeks, and then after two full months of carefully following the instructions he'd laid out—of the Undersiders and his other subordinates slowly losing territory to the PRT—I was finally given a message to meet him in person. Not only was I to meet him in person, I was to meet him in private, and as a civilian.

This was it, I said to myself, and Lisa said he had something in mind, but it didn't feel like a betrayal.

Should I go, I wondered to myself, but there really wasn't much of a choice, was there?

August 19th, exactly two months after Calvert had let Dinah go home I walked out of my lair in a sundress and went to my meeting spot—which ended up being the second story of a modest apartment building. By now, I'd had my injuries—including my blindness—healed through some under the table parahuman help, but it was through my bugs that I sensed the building was almost entirely empty, save for the man in question of course. No bodyguards, no other residents. The sign over one of the windows outside said there was space available, but that was probably just camouflage.

I knocked on the door with a feeling of trepidation, and tried to calm myself as much as possible when I heard Calvert's invitation. "Come in."

The apartment building was air conditioned, it was in a fairly undamaged area of the city after all, but a blast of heat hit me when I entered from the hallway into the apartment living room. He was seated right next to the balcony door and next to him was a tall glass table, and an empty chair which he gestured at wordlessly.

I couldn't see much of any other furnishings in the room, a couple of bland paintings, a small TV next to a loveseat, but my bugs let me know there was a fully stocked kitchen through the doorway to my right, and a bedroom with an adjacent bathroom in the doorway to my right. It was fairly small by my current standards, which left me wondering why Calvert chose the location. From what I knew of him, he was more the type to go for something more grandiose.

Still, that hardly mattered at the moment, so I walked over and sat down across from him. I took off my wide brimmed hat and set it on the floor. The insects in my hair shifted subtly as the motion almost dislodged a few of them.

"Tea?" Calvert made another gesture, this time at the pitcher on the table. I paused for a second, debating on whether or not he might have drugged the beverage, before giving a nod—it seemed like a pointless endeavor for him to try at this point.

Even so, the feeling of trepidation only increased as I saw him reach out and pour a glass of iced tea and slide it next to me. It just seemed so… ordinary. A completely normal thing, polite even—which was not something I really would expect from a villain like Calvert. Sure, he technically wasn't Coil any longer, but the underlying personality, I felt, was still something core to his person.

I felt a droplet of sweat slide down from my armpit until it hit the fabric of my dress. It was more from nervousness than the heat blazing in, but I still sipped at the tea—after seeing Calvert take a gulp from his own glass.

For a few seconds, neither of us said anything, and I just looked at the man much of my life had been centered around for the past few months. It was such a short time, really, but I felt like more had happened in those months than a great deal of the rest of my life. More variety than just continued bullying, anyway. In some ways, it was also the first time I'd really gotten a look at Coil unmasked. The last time I'd seen him in person I'd been blind after all.

I suppose the main thing I could say about him was that he looked very little like Coil now. The bodysuit he'd worn before put so much emphasis on his thin frame, making him look almost skeletal, but the polo shirt and slacks he had on didn't hug his frame so tightly, giving an entirely different image. He was, in a word, average. His exposed arms seemed somewhat muscular in a very wiry sense, giving a hint of being toned rather than merely thin. Only a slight gauntness to his cheeks gave a different impression.

"You wanted to see me?" I broke the silence as I looked at his face, taking in his expression as it shifted to an amused sort of look. A black, almost bushy eyebrow quirked and he gave a thin smile. His slightly sunken cheeks folded from the motion, and his grey eyes locked onto mine.

"Yes, I did indeed." His voice gave it away. It sounded exactly the same as I'd remembered since I first met him. "But before anything else, I wanted check on your satisfaction to holding up my end of our deal."

I swallowed as a feeling of being led into a trap loomed over me. "I don't have any complaints; Dinah seems to be doing much better now."

"Good, good…" Calvert flicked his eyes to balcony—or rather, to the park outside the apartment building which the balcony gave a nice view of. "I felt it was time to address your side of the bargain.

"As Tattletale gave a brief overview on our last meeting of sorts, I'm planning on letting go a number of the Undersiders' services once the PRT's control of the city has strengthened further. Thanks in part to my proxies in the city's government I'll have almost total authority in the city come November, and I'll be wanting most of the villains out of the city after the elections."

I swallowed again. "But not me."

"But not you." Calvert gave a small nod, looking back to me with that thin smile still on his face. "You agreed to work for me for however long I desired provided I let my pet go, which I have."

"I'm—" I started, but quickly stopped as Calvert held up his palm.

"My main question to you, right now," he continued as if I hadn't interrupted, "is how far, exactly, you're willing to go for me.

"I have no complaints on your services so far, you've outdone my expectations, but now that the city is coming firmly under my control, I imagine the nature of your work for me will change, and evolve."

"I… don't understand." I said slowly, my mind turning his words over, examining them. A change in identity, perhaps?

"Let me be more precise, then." Calvert paused, sipping at his tea. "Your morals have always been a very clear guiding point for you, but how far would you be willing to bend them for me, given your promise? Would you kill for me? Would you die for me?"

"I—" A thrill of fright shot up my spine.

"Or, to give a hypothetical example, let us say that an acquaintance of mine was planning a coup, planning to kill me." My eyes went wide before I could stop it. "But let's say, hypothetically, that I asked you to kill that acquaintance, would you?"

"I—" I didn't even know what I could say. He knew. He fucking _knew_. Of course he fucking knew. Shit.

"Or," Calvert said, still as casual as ever as he pulled out a gun and flicked off the safety with a sharp click—and for a second, I thought about attacking him with everything I had—and set it on the table between us. "In this scenario, let's say that acquaintance was something of a lonely person, and wouldn't be willing to go through with the coup if their dearest friend held a gun to her own head and told them, utterly serious, that she'd have to kill herself if that acquaintance didn't abandon the plan."

I stared at the gun like it was a hissing viper, and flicked my gaze to Calvert as he looked at me, bushy eyebrow quirked once more. Despite the heat, I felt a cold chill creep down my back, even as I tried to just _think_ despite the panic trying to overtake me.

In many ways, I could barely believe it. I couldn't truly believe that Calvert was being so… forgiving, to put simply. He knew, possibly from torturing us for information with his power, but he still knew and he hadn't just killed us. It wouldn't have been hard. A sniper rifle, a bomb, maybe something from an out of town parahuman, there were endless ways to get rid of us given all the time he'd had, and the fact that I hadn't gone through with it—yet—because he'd held up his end of the deal.

"I… I don't…" I stuttered for a second before stopping, swallowing nosily—and taking a sip of my tea as I tried to get some lubrication in my suddenly dry throat—before taking a breath to try and calm down and just push away the emotions tumbling through me. "What… guarantee would I have that, in that hypothetical scenario, you'd continue to keep your end of our deal?"

"Yes," Calvert said, giving a sort of a huff of laugh. "I suppose that would make it hard to check on my end of it, wouldn't it? But let's say for the sake of argument that you could trust me to uphold it fully, even with your demise. It's a hypothetical situation, after all."

"I…" I trailed off, thinking, albeit somewhat erratically. Part of me was trying to think of what just I could _do_ now, did we try it anyway, run, fight, what?

But another part of me did think about his question seriously, tried to flip around the supposedly hypothetical in a way so I could examine it honestly. What if I really could trust Calvert, which I couldn't, really, but what if I could. If I, under his orders, told Lisa that if she didn't abandon her plan to overthrow the man who'd hired her at gunpoint, I'd have to kill myself. It was so utterly ridiculous in so many different ways—but really, wasn't so much of what I'd done already so? The main question, though, was could I actually do that, in all seriousness?

Probably not.

Could I kill Lisa?

Definitely not.

"No, I don't think I could." Actually giving the answer seemed to drain something out of me. I was still nervous, hell, I was actually kind of terrified of what was going to happen now, but I felt a sort of serenity in actually giving that answer honestly. But on the other hand, it probably wasn't the smartest of answers.

"I see." Calvert gave a sigh, before picking up the gun, flicking the safety back on and holstering it on left leg again. I'd noticed it from the start thanks to my insects, but hadn't really expected him to pull it out. "A pity, but I did expect as much. Let me ask something a bit less roundabout, then. If I had a need for you to seduce and sleep with someone, would you?"

For a moment I froze, my brain just sort of stopped as I tried parsing the question. An insane image of me dressed up as some sort of gaudy hooker and acting as a hanger on to a fat businessman popped into my head. I'd have laughed if I didn't think that Calvert was absolutely serious. A different sort of feeling shot through me then—revulsion. A twisting snake in my gut that writhed about, making me want to vomit out all the tea I'd just drank.

But I swallowed it down, and thought. Could I do it? Would I do it? And, perhaps most importantly, if I couldn't just how would that impact Calvert's… forgiveness, for the lack of a better word. Was this all just sort some of roundabout interrogation he was constructing through his power, he certainly seemed at ease enough for it, or was this really just a more thorough grounding of what I was going to need to do in the future?

I didn't know. I had absolutely no idea what Calvert was planning here, and that was probably the most frightening thing. But I did know that I needed to give an answer, an honest one, because something told me—just a gut feeling—that he'd know if I was lying.

So I thought some more. The thought of having to just whoring myself out was flat out revolting, not the quite the same kind of sickening feeling at the thought of killing someone in cold blood, but no less chilling in a way. But the question of whether or not I could do it, that was the main thing. So, Taylor, I thought to myself, could you do that?

Probably, if I absolutely had to. It was different from killing someone, after all. It was something I'd do to myself, something in me that I'd have to sacrifice. In a way, that confirmation made me feel just a bit dirtier, think just a little bit less of myself.

"I…" I started, and an image of Brian thrust itself into my brain, making me hesitate. In all honesty, we'd been growing more and more distant. I'd tried to act as a stable element in his life, but we just hadn't been clicking. If it really, actually came down to it, I'd have break up with him—hell, I'd definitely have to break up with him regardless when it came time for the rest of the Undersiders leave Brockton Bay, but this thought was like the final nail in the coffin to me.

"Yes, I could. I… would have a hard time doing it, but I could, if needed." Saying it out loud felt even worse, like I'd thrown away my dignity. I imagined the expression on my dad's face if he ever heard it, and felt a pang of shame.

Which was, in so many ways, utterly ridiculous. I'd already done so many horrible things, even if it was to many horrible people, and I'd been planning on killing the man in front of me for quite some time—even if I'd avoided thinking about it. What was that to selling my body out? Nothing, it was barely a drop in the bucket of whatever horrible karma I'd been piling onto myself despite my best intentions.

Shit, thinking about it like that hurt. I'd never wanted things to turn out this way, but the world never did seem to cooperate with me.

"I see." Calvert's other eyebrow rose up, a clear display of surprise. He hadn't been expecting me to say that. "Prove it to me."

My breath hitched, and I looked at him in shock. The sweat on me, creeping down my armpits, beading on my forehead, suddenly seemed very cold on my skin. For one instant, I felt like laughing hysterically, but then the revulsion came back full force and I had to swallow down the bile that was rising in my throat.

"I…" I shakily took a sip of my tea. "H-how?"

"Take off your clothes." Calvert looked at me the same as he always had throughout this meeting, but that casual air had suddenly taken on a far more sinister presence to me. There was something more behind that almost bored look in his eyes, now.

Or was it just in my head? Was he uninterested, but just testing me? In some ways, the unknown frightened me more than the order. But what else was there to do? I thought, for a single moment, of refusing, or attacking him, or anything else besides following his command.

But I did.

I stood up and grabbed the sides of my dress and brought up over my head and set it down on my chair, careful not to dislodge any of the insects clinging to it. I paused for a moment, standing in front of him—still looking bored—while I was naked except for my sandals, uncertain. I saw a clock on the other hand of the wall tick away a few seconds, and Calvert didn't say a word, just looked at him. In some ways, I felt a twang of regret at not wearing something else beyond a single dress—like if I'd had more clothing I could have felt less vulnerable from the action, but I put that aside. It was a useless feeling.

I let a slow breath as I fidgeted for a second and fought the urge to cover up with my hands. Instead, I forced my arms to hang loosely at my sides, almost appearing relaxed if not for the slight shaking that trembled through my limbs. I gave a noisy swallow, trying to work up some moisture in mouth, and licked my lips. All the while, Calvert just stared, that same thin smile, that same bored look in his eyes.

I watched a few more seconds pass without a word, and suddenly had a thought. Was he using his powers right now? Was he, perhaps, having me do something quite different, something a bit _more_ than just stand silently in some other reality? It was more than a tad unsettling.

"What now?" I finally asked, after letting ten more seconds tick away on the clock.

Calvert blinked, and took a long, slow breath, before giving a short wave. "You can put your clothes back on. That's enough of proof to me for now."

"Did…" I worked my jaw for a second, a strange need for confirmation overcoming me. "Did you just use your powers? Are you, I mean?"

"Would it matter if I was?" A curious look entered his eyes, and he quirked an eyebrow again.

"I—" For a second I felt like I'd overstepped myself, like I'd just made a mistake. It wasn't really important, anyway. "No, not really. I was just… curious."

"Then yes, I did." Calvert stood up, and I had to stop myself from taking a step back. I wasn't suddenly helpless now that I'd taken off my clothes, or even more powerful if I had them on given they were just ordinary ones, but I still felt… different. Enough that I had to force myself to act coolly, keep myself from hunching defensively. "You, as I'm beginning to expect, performed well beyond my hopes."

Calvert pulled a key out of his pocket and set it on the table. "Keep this. When I call for you, I'll want you to come here again."

So saying, he left at a leisurely pace. I didn't move as I watched him leave the room, and the apartment building through my bugs. I looked at the key on the table, naked in the wake of the summer heat blasting into the room, turmoil buzzing in my mind. I didn't even know how to take any of this. Should I prepare for Calvert to try and kill me? Should I feel dirty from having to strip down in front of him, from whatever he might have had me do?

I don't know.

Ever since he'd let Dinah go, I'd been tormenting myself what thoughts of just what would happen in the future. In many cases, I'd wondered if he was going to have me do when things were all said and done, and I'd wondered just what I'd do if it came down to it. I'd never come up with a good answer. Did saving Dinah justify it all, or should risk everything and try Lisa's plan, even if he kept his promise.

I don't know.

I pulled back on my clothes and grabbed the key, not really sure of anything anymore. I'd call Lisa, undoubtedly, but I didn't think she'd have any answer either.

I really don't know.


	9. Native American

I paused, frowning behind my mask, not entirely sure I'd heard right.

The money was nice, sure, and in the first place I'd sort of been edging on some sort of infiltration. Sort of, anyway.

"Wait," I said, deciding to be partly honest. "I'm confused, you're… heroes? But—"

"What, thought we were villains?" Lisa shot me a grin. "Yeah, I'm not surprised you'd be confused. You said you're new, so let me give a little background info here first.

"To the public, most heroes you know are going to be the big, showy ones. Legend, for example. Very charismatic, very well loved. You might even say most Protectorate capes aspire to be like him, and the Ward system is basically just the junior Protectorate. As a public cape, you go out on patrol, you smile at the camera, and work together with your incredibly PC powers."

Lisa paused there, her eyes flicking to the side to look at Alec. "But what if you didn't exactly win a great deal in the power lottery and ended up with a power to control human nervous systems? With enough fine control to be a puppet master?"

I felt a moment of confusion, added on top of all the other confusion, before Lisa's implication set in and small thrill of fear surged through me. Unbidden, it only took a few seconds for my mind to bring up several nightmarish thoughts. I didn't do more than twitch, but Alec gave a short chuckle.

"Not to worry, it takes a while for my power to work, and you'd notice it." He waved his hand idly, as if brushing off my worries. "Most of the time I just grab a muscle and spaz it out at the wrong time."

"And that's not even the worst of it, really." Lisa continued as if Alec hadn't spoke, pulling out her phone and flipping the screen in my direction to show me a picture of man with what looked like festering sores all over him. I barely held back a sharp recoil. "A good number of so-called 'monstrous capes' have abilities or appearances that people just aren't comfortable with, or distrust at a glance.

"So what do you do?" Lisa cocked her eyebrow at me. "If you're the Protectorate, or whatever, do you just ignore them, let a criminal gang pick them up, or maybe you pull them in, and just keep them safely under control even though they can't do any of the work? No, that'd be a waste, right? So, you put them to work doing stuff you don't want the public to know about—_can't_ let them know about."

"Wait, wait, wait, what, all the conspiracy theorists are right?" Out of the gloom of my confusion, I was starting to feel a boom of hysteria. This was ridiculous. "Should I go put on my tinfoil cap?"

"Nah," Lisa said with a short laugh. "There are some specialists that go around spoofing the public with that shit. They drum things up so the actual going-ons are basically never even speculated on. Maybe about one in a hundred crazy theories even have a small grain of truth to them."

"We're getting off topic," Brian suddenly interrupted. "Lisa loves to drum shit up herself, so let me just be straight with you, okay? I can see you're having a hard time really meshing with this, so let me put it this way: the Protectorate is like the police, or maybe the National Guard. We're the military, more specifically the black ops."

"Then why do people think you're villains? I mean even Armsmaster—"

"Armsmaster doesn't have enough tact to hold a polite conversation, let alone being savvy enough to know much about political intrigue." Lisa rolled her eyes, giving an exasperated head shake. "And as for the villain thing, it was basically a huge SNAFU that brought us into the public eye, and our boss decided to turn it around to do something of an undercover operation."

"Hence, the Undersiders," I stated flatly.

"Exactly!" Lisa gave another grin. "And you guys were complaining about the name being silly!"

"It is," Alec and Brian chorused.

"So!" Lisa roughly pushed both of the boys' heads to the side. "Interested in joining up?"

"I…" I stuttered for a second, still sort of flummoxed. "Are you sure you even want me? My power isn't—"

"Isn't good for the Protectorate, sure." Lisa overruled me. "But absolutely perfect for us. You think the public heroes want to see all the creepy-crawlies? No, the PR department for the Wards would nix everything they could so you're all family friendly, but for our needs, you've got the best kind of goods, honey."

I was beginning to see that Lisa was pretty overbearing. And excitable, given how she shushed Alec as soon as tried to interject twice. At this point, I was more conflicted than ever considering my initial plan was out the window—if they were telling the truth.

That was another issue. How did I know what any of what they were telling me was real, or if they were just pulling the wool over my eyes? By their own admission, I'd never actually be able to double-check it because the 'undersider' capes intentionally hid it from the public eye.

"Look, um," I started, and then paused, trying to think of a polite way to put it. "Not to be rude or anything, but—"

"How do you know we're telling the truth?" Lisa preempted me once again. I was beginning to see a theme, but somehow I didn't find it all that annoying. "Honestly, it's a little hard to verify, isn't it? I suppose the best way to do so would be to bring you to our boss. He's got some access to pretty high level material that'd brush away your doubts."

"But?" I could sense a 'but', and I saw Lisa nodding at the question.

"But our boss wouldn't really want to see you unless you're already committed."

I looked at the three for a moment, taking in Lisa's wide smile, Alec's feigned boredom, Brian's muscles—seriously, he looked ripped—and then made my choice.


	10. What is Love

"Ugh, I just… I don't know what I should do." The grumblings of her daughter were the first thing Carol heard upon finally stepping back into her home. The day's work had been exhausting thanks to several cases being dropped in her lap after one of her coworker had ended up in the hospital.

Normally, Carol might have felt exasperated to hear her daughter obviously not having the best day herself, but she couldn't help but be bemused more than anything. The troubles of youth and the perils of adulthood weren't so different—it was just a matter of scope at times. Misery loved company, so why not see if her rambunctious child needed another ear to be lent?

"Don't tell me I should be patient!" Victoria gave something akin to a hiss into her phone. "It's been three weeks. _Three!_ I've been waiting too long, if anything."

Carol smiled to herself, finally identifying the person on the other side of the phone as she sat down on the couch, still in hearing distance from her daughter pacing a room over. She let out a small sigh as she loosened the tie around her neck. She normally got a bit too much sitting, but most of the day had been spent running around—inside the firm's office and out—trying to organize all the information left haphazardly by her coworker before she'd gotten herself in a car accident. It felt good to just sit down in a comfy seat sometimes.

"Come on, why won't you help me out?" Victoria gave a whine—or perhaps a beg—now trying to cajole something out of her on-again boyfriend.

_'When all else fails, just try to wheedle it out of him,_' Carol thought to herself, amusement building further. _'I can remember a few times when I tried the same…_'

"That's bullshit!" Victoria swore, causing Carol's smile to widen minutely. Whatever Dean had said, it'd been the wrong thing to say. "You are just… ugh! Fine! See if I ask you for help again!"

Carol could almost hear her daughter restraining herself from chucking her cellphone across the room as she gave a growl, before the sound of stomping grew until the crescendo of the kitchen door being slammed open was hit.

"Mom!" Victoria seemed to find her mother's presence a total shock. "Uh, welcome back? I didn't hear you come in."

"Yes, you did seem rather involved with your conversation." Carol fiddled with her tie, but didn't pull it off. It was more of an act of being involved that allowed her to seem like she didn't see her daughter's blush of embarrassment. Whatever her daughter was, mature wasn't it, but she tried very hard these days not let her emotions get the best of her. She even did quite well at it, which meant whatever she was worrying about was probably important to her.

"Is something bothering you?" Carol finally looked up from her fiddling when she saw her daughter pull herself together from the corner of her eye.

"It's…" Victoria sighed, sitting down next to Carol. "It's Amy."

"What's wrong with Amy?" Carol gave a sigh herself, woefully unsurprised. "I thought you said she was in a good mood lately?"

"She was!" Victoria paused. "Is, even! Kind of."

"How very clear," Carol said with a slight drawl of sarcasm.

"She's just," Victoria started to say, before sighing again. "Sometimes she looks like she's on top of the world, and other times it's like she's trying to shoulder it."

"Vicky." At Carol's raised eyebrow Victoria glanced away.

"I wasn't lying," Victoria said after another long pause. "I just thought I could do something about it."

"And now you don't?" Carol pursed her lips, wondering. She'd seen what Victoria was talking about easily enough herself, but felt it best to leave well enough alone. Her… other daughter was very much an introverted person, and the relationship she'd had with her was far from stable. Why not leave it to Victoria?

"…No." The confession seemed to physically pain Victoria, the grimace working its way across her expression belying the _defeat_ that her voice held. "A month ago I'd have said I could push her out of any kind of funk she worked herself into, but now…? Now I just don't know."

Carol sighed again, but felt another smile working onto her face despite the aura of depression literally radiating from her daughter. She put her arm around Victoria and patted her sympathetically.

"I know how you feel," Carol admitted, drawing a look of surprise from Victoria. "What, did you think I've never run into something like this with your aunt?"

"Well… no, not really." Victoria wrapped a hand around the one Carol had extended, not too tightly, but hard enough to see she definitely wanted that sympathy.

"Sarah and I…" Carol felt her smile grow a bit melancholy. "There are times we don't always see eye to eye. I'll admit I find myself more in… more in Amy's position at times rather yours, but there have been times, Vicky…

"The stories would take too long to tell, honestly, but your aunt can be incredibly stubborn about shouldering something." Carol shook her head, pushing away the nostalgia.

"So what should I do?" Victoria finally worked herself back to the question that was causing her so much distress.

"Sometimes, Vicky, there's nothing you can do." Carol brought her free hand up to shush her daughter as the girl tried to interrupt. "Sometimes there isn't, and you should be aware of that, and some of those times the best thing to do _is_ wait until the person you want to help comes to you.

"But not all the time," Carol said as Victoria's expression and aura grew more and more stormy. "Some of those times, when nothing you do seems to get through, what you need to do is ask for help. I cannot tell you the number of times I've asked Mark or Neil for help and the problem that had been plaguing me for months on end just disappeared the next day."

"So what, I should be going to Crystal or Eric?" Victoria's expression was almost petulant, clearly not happy with her mother's answer.

"What I'm saying, Victoria," Carol paused momentarily to shoot a stern look at daughter. "Is that sometimes the best help you can give is to let others know that there's a problem."

Victoria flushed, and Carol didn't pretend not to see it this time. "I'm not trying to embarrass you, or make you feel bad about this, but trying to solve everything yourself isn't always going to work."

"I get it," Victoria mumbled, looking down.

"Good." Carol squeezed her hand, before she started to stand up. "Now, is Amy in her room?"

"Uh," Victoria looked bewildered for a second. "Yeah, but what…?"

"It'd be rather hypocritical of me if I said all that and didn't try to help, wouldn't it?" Carol smiled, feeling a bit chagrined. "And if I can't do anything, maybe we _will_ ask your cousins, and if that doesn't work, we'll bring everybody in on things, okay?"

"Okay," Victoria agreed, smiling back. "I'll be here."

Nodding, Carol actually did pull off her tie, throwing it over one of the living room seats as she walked upstairs and firmly knocked her knuckle against the wood of Amy's closed door. The silly little wooden engraving, with an uneven carving of the name hung on it, as it had for nearly a decade. Victoria had made it soon after Amy had been adopted into the family, largely due to it being a popular arts and crafts project at the time in school, but it had been the start of a, she was told, beautiful sistership. Carol wasn't certain about that, but she did believe it meant a lot to Amy.

"Vicky, I don't want to talk right now." The voice was muffled, but easily discernible. The feeling of gloom in the voice was as well.

"It's not Vicky, Amy." Carol gave a small sigh. "But I want to talk all the same."

There was a long pause, long enough that Carol wondered if she was being ignored, before she heard the squeak of a mattress and timid footsteps work their way closer. There was a small click of the lock being undone, before the door cracked open. Carol almost felt like laughing at how Amy peered out of the small opening, but held back. She looked… vulnerable, and pained.

"U-uh, Carol," Amy stuttered for a second.

"You don't have to call me that, Amy." Carol held back another sigh.

"No, I…" Amy shook her head, only partly seen from outside the door. Whatever she meant to say didn't come out, however, and the silence grew as Amy looked down—away, really, anywhere but at Carol.

"May I come in?" Carol didn't advance, but she felt like that question seemed to intimidate Amy even further, she seemed to slink back, not as an invitation, but as if she was warding off a threat. In the end, however, after a few more silent moments, Amy did pull the door open further, and moved back.

Carol took the opening to slowly move into the room, taking it in as she so rarely had seen it. It was… drab. What few bits of personality to it were things that Victoria had clearly purchased for Amy rather than something she'd gotten for herself—a kitten lamp, from when they were younger, a large pink heart pillow, action figures of Glory Girl and Panacea, among others.

It was a little bit painful to see. But then, Amy rarely spent a lot of time in her own room except to sleep. Whenever she could, she'd rather be with Victoria.

"What..." Amy started to say, but froze when Carol looked at her. It took several more seconds before she finally came back together to finish her sentence. "What do you want?"

The question was almost gruff, but clearly hadn't meant to be given the wince Amy tried to suppress as she asked it. Carol kept a smile off her face from the awkwardness.

"Victoria has been almost tearing her own hair out from worry, you know." It wasn't an answer, but Carol didn't want to really get to that yet.

"She has." There wasn't any question in her tone, and Carol wasn't surprised. Amy had been deliberately pushing Victoria away, after all. Torturing herself, really.

"I guess…" Carol sighed again, trying to think of a better way than this, even knowing there wasn't. "I guess I came to ask what's wrong."

Which was a lie, of course.

"Nothing," Amy's reply was barely audible, but she seemed to shake herself and draw a little bit of strength. The moroseness seemingly disappearing as she finally marshaled herself. "Nothing's wrong, I just… had a bit fight—no, it wasn't really a fight, I was just being stupid and got angry with Vicky.

"It's okay, Carol," Amy gave a tight smile. "I'll get over it, and stop making her worry."

Carol shook her head. "You're an awful liar, you know."

"What?" Amy frowned, barely registering the small rebuke in the face of having her easy excuse being ignored.

"I was fine with letting things go because I thought Victoria would win through in the end, but I guess…" Carol let a smile through. "I guess I'm awful at ignoring the elephant in the room too."

"I don't…" Amy licked her lips. "I don't know—"

"I do," Carol interrupted. "I know what you did, Amy."

"You…?" Amy's expression slowly went from a pained unease, and then a dawning horror. "You know?"

"Amy," Carol shook her head, a chuckle working its way out of her despite the desire to hold it in. "I may be many things, but even I'm not so oblivious as to not realize. You don't just wake up one day a new person."

"Oh," Amy gasped, a sharp inhale as the horror on her face continued to grow. "Oh god…"

It was almost painful to watch as Amy's arms jerked, like she wanted to do _something_ with them, but always stopped halfway. Carol could see tears shimmering in Amy's eyes, and hear sharp gasping breathes as panic began to push its way through the horror.

"It's…" Carol sighed again. "It's okay, Amy."

"Okay!?" It was less of a shout, and more of loud whisper, but the harsh laugh that came out of Amy next wasn't as silent. "It is _not_ okay! I… I raped you! I fucking violated your mind just because… just because I…"

"Because you wanted to be loved," Carol finished, a smile coming onto her face again. "I'll admit I wasn't exactly happy when I realized."

Amy seemed to finally pause in her panic attack at that, a touch of confusion in her teary eyes. Carol could so easily see it, now, what type of girl Amy was. She was still a child, in many of the most important ways, but in others she was turning into an adult. She'd done something bad, and now she was tearing herself apart because she wanted to be punished for it.

"Yes, I wasn't happy, but I also wasn't angry either." Carol pursed her lips, pausing thoughtfully now that she saw Amy was paying attention—wasn't going to do something drastic. "It was wrong of you, yes. But it did allow me to be a bit more clearheaded and I think it's safe to say that I can shoulder some of the blame.

"Amy, I know very keenly that I have been an awful mother to you. The fact that you still wanted me to love you at all…" Carol shook her head. "It baffles me a little, but at the same time it feels nice."

"That's because—" Amy stopped as Carol raised a finger.

"Yes, it is. It is because you made me love you, like I never truly had before." Carol paused, mulling a little over the fact that she couldn't even find a shred of resentment at that fact. All that she felt was sadness, a sadness from the fact that she'd pushed her daughter this far. She'd spent the weeks that Amy had avoided her like a plague to alternate between introspection, and avoidance. Sometimes she knew she should be murderous over having her emotions played with, and sometimes she just wanted to not think about it at all. In the end, she couldn't. She couldn't follow along with should bes, and she couldn't run away from it forever.

"You did something you shouldn't have, Amy." Carol repeated, and then smiled. "But I forgive you for it."

"You forgive me?" Amy looked at her dumbly. "You're just… But I… You're just saying that because—"

"I probably am saying that because of what you did, Amy." Carol nodded, ignoring the stricken expression that it caused on Amy's face. "It's a bit insidious like that, love."

"I can…" Amy swallowed. "I can fix, I know I can, just—"

Carol batted at Amy's wavering hand dismissively.

"Amy, if you do so again, I'm going to be very cross with you in a lot of ways." Carol sighed as Amy's expression grew even more pained. "Honestly, I didn't want to have this conversation right now exactly for this reason, but it looks like you're very good at torturing yourself. I'm going to be very clear here: I forgive you, and I want you to forgive yourself."

"How?" Amy shook her head in disbelief. "How can I… you…?"

"Given how low your self-esteem apparently is, I doubt it will be easy, but I think we can start with you finally calling me Mom."

"M-Mom…?" Amy blinked. "No, I mean… how can you not want me to fix it?"

Carol sighed again, glancing around the room as she fought the small twinge in her chest. It wasn't exactly ideal in any fashion. She slowly walked over to the kitten lamp in the room and flicked it on—the daylight from the windows had started to fade a bit.

"That's the funny thing with emotions, with people," Carol finally began. "As I'm sure you're well aware, how can you tell if you're you if you can't tell if what you're feeling is real?"

When Amy didn't say anything, Carol continued. "I've… thought a lot in the past few weeks, Amy. As much as I tried to avoid thinking about it, I couldn't ignore it either. At some points I wanted to come and demand you to change it all back, but at others…"

Carol sighed.

"At others I couldn't help but realize how very tired I am. I never realized it before, but holding onto grudges, and being unpleasant is just very tiring. I…" Carol shook her head and chuckled, finally looking away from the lamp and back at Amy, who looked lost. "I'm actually very happy nowadays. I go to work looking forward to it, and I'm blissful at the thought of coming home to my family. I don't go out heroing much anymore, but I even feel a sense of anticipation to go out when it calls for it."

"But…" Amy opened and closed her mouth a few times, and Carol didn't interrupt her, letting her articulate herself. "But that's not real."

"Who says?" Carol smiled. "When Mark actually takes his medicine, when he actually acts like the Mark I know and love, is that fake, Amy?

"Who can say just what happiness and love are?" Carol shook her head, and sat down on Amy's bed, patting the area next to her. It took several seconds before, timidly, Amy finally sat down next to her.

"We're not okay," Carol said, even as she wrapped an arm around her troubled daughter. "I… haven't been okay for a very long time, and that's not your fault, Amy. Mark's not okay, he hates the fact that he has to depend on drugs to feel much of anything, and that's not your fault either. Vicky, as much as I love her, as much as she tries to rein it in, has a very large problem with her temper."

"I'm not okay either," Amy whispered.

"I know," Carol nodded. "But that's fine. You can't fix everything, and as bad as what you did was, what I have been doing to you is just as bad.

"But, maybe, if we try, we can still be happy, real or fake." Carol squeezed Amy's shoulder, looking at her daughter with a smile. "Okay?"

"Okay." It was soft, barely more than a upturn of the lips, but it was still felt sincere enough for Carol to feel like that there was a promise there.


End file.
